Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 564 - Drugs Are Bad MmmmmK?
Episode Date: August 2, 2021Talking about Simone Biles, prescribed and non prescribed medicine as well as psychedelics. Subscribe to the NEW Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Subscribe to the Podcast on on Pla...tforms! ➢ 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Oh my God.
What?
What's going on?
We're back in town.
We're back in town.
The boys are back in town.
Isn't that a great song?
I had some Eat Right shipped out to me.
That was in New Jersey.
That was in New Jersey.
New Jersey Shore.
Yeah, it worked out good.
Jim Tan Laundry.
Trying to stay in shape, you know, while I'm away.
Every time I used to travel, it was like an automatic 10 pounds.
Because I was just like, ah,
I'm just going to enjoy myself and do whatever.
And,
uh,
when I'm left to do whatever,
it's not great.
So some intermittent fasting,
some eat right and cooking up some steaks and stuff like that,
staying on plan,
but just having those foods in the freezer that are going to microwave in
three or four minutes.
It allowed me to talk myself out of like just eating a bunch of bullshit with
whoever else was
with my family members and stuff like that the stress relief that you can have from just being
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when i was at the tahoe house i had a bunch of eat right foods as well it's just it it you're
right it makes things easier and it takes all the excuses out.
The choice is made for you.
It's already cooked and you know,
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it's going to taste good.
So you're like,
all right,
don't be a bitch.
Don't eat,
don't eat a fucking burrito.
Just do what you're supposed to do.
Be a good boy and get back on track.
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Getting some of that mind bullet going.
Getting some of that mind bullet going.
Hey, I got a bone to pick with you, Encima.
Pick my bone.
You guys, I've been lifting for a long time, right?
A little bit, yeah.
I try really hard, right?
Try.
I lifted some heavy weights here and there, right?
Yeah. Okay. I talked to Derek weights here and there, right? Yeah.
Okay.
I talked to Derek from More Plates, More Dates, tried to get him on the show.
And he's like, you know, I'm pretty busy right now.
He's like, but I think maybe we can do an angle with Encima.
I'm like, what?
That sucks.
Okay, so you won't come on my show, you want to do something independently within sema i see
how it is he's like hey look man i'm not gonna be jealous about it or anything there's no reason
yeah that was funny that was actually funny that's very funny that's so good why are you
killing me like that i love that i love and hate that that's so good way to go in suma dude but
watching a lot of his content like it's making me like think man what if i just got some phytosia
agrestis under this belt you know what i mean remember we remember we talked about that andrew
huberman was on rogan phytosia agrestis which is like this west african root that increases
your testosterone or some crap like that and then um is that what you've been on the whole time i don't know but this is this is this is
nigeria west africa but this is the interesting thing guys it's like all of these um performance
enhancers right it's like if there are things that apparently in other countries they've already been using um and it's already like it is
performance enhancing maybe we're kind of behind and i wonder how fast like natural bodybuilding
feds or whatever are going to be like oh this natural route can't take that right it's like
what what's the limit here in terms of what is performance enhancing and what isn't because
that shit's from the like that's that's a route you could pick it and eat it and you're you know like i had a strength coach
friend of ours when i missed a 500 pound bench you guys remember uh i was trying to hit a 500
pound bench at 220 and uh i came up shy i think i hit like a 470 something and then went for 500
and gave it a good run, but missed it.
And then I came back a few months later and was able to get it.
I did do it at a slightly higher body weight, but it was just a couple pounds more.
And the strength coach friend of mine said, oh, he's like, all we're talking about is like 4%.
He's like, that comes in a pill.
And, you know, keep in mind, I'm already on performance enhancing drugs.
So he wasn't talking about, he wasn't talking about taking more steroids or anything.
He was talking about something that can hit your central nervous system kind of via your brain.
So Dave Asprey has written books on this kind of stuff.
You look up some of the stuff that he's talking about.
I know that people sometimes discredit Dave Asprey because they just think that he's trying to make a sale all the time on different things that he does.
But he's got great information.
And if you read into some of the stuff that he's talking about, some of these things, let's just say hypothetically, Andrew has less serotonin than he does something else.
that knows what they're doing, a coach that knows what they're doing, can provide Andrew with the pharmaceuticals that can help him go from a 315 deadlift to just a few months
later, deadlifting 335, 355.
It's not going to make him deadlift 405 out of nowhere, but it's going to get your body
in tune with lifting these heavier weights because these demonstrations of strength that
we oftentimes see in sport are not just muscular coordination and muscular strength.
They're muscular coordination and muscular strength normally via your central nervous system.
So if we have drugs that can do stuff to the central nervous system, those are going to far surpass, in my opinion, those are going to far surpass what a steroid can do.
And especially in the immediate, having an immediate impact.
An example would be something like caffeine.
So you could shoot somebody with some testosterone before they work out.
Quick question.
Isn't caffeine in high amounts, isn't that banned to some extent?
I believe it's banned to some extent as well, yeah.
I believe it's banned to some extent as well, yeah.
But if you were to take like caffeine and ephedrine, again, both things are banned.
Those things will hype you up for a workout.
Testosterone is something that would assist you obviously greatly over the course of time.
But things that impact your central nervous system, they can impact you right then and there.
So if you took something before a jiu-jitsu tournament, I don't even remember half the names of some of these things.
You got to like look a lot of these things up, but they're basically pharmaceutical nootropics.
You know, nootropics, like do they work?
It's like kind of like, I don't know how good they work.
I don't know what kind of dosages you need of these things, but the pharmaceutical versions
of these things, they fucking work
and they can make you, they can assist you in being faster.
They can assist you in just even being a better mood.
Think about being in a good mood.
Think about it's game day and you're, and you're nervous as fuck.
And all you can think about is your opening squat.
Well, if all you can think about is your opening squat, how well are you going to do on your
third attempt?
I mean, you're, you're crippled by thinking, oh man, I don't know if I have my
knee wraps, right? I don't know if my shoes are right. My training was a little off. I mean,
shit, man, you are, if you have something that's got you a little hyped up and everything seems
more positive rather than negative, you're feeling the beat of the song that's playing.
When you're going out to lift, you're hearing the crowd, like everything is just enhanced a little bit.
What is that going to do for you?
Absolutely.
It's like when you think about the Shakara Richardson situation where she was banned from the Olympics for having marijuana in her system.
Some people are like, yeah, marijuana doesn't matter.
But in a sense, that can help performance to some extent.
It can calm an individual down, especially an individual that maybe has high amounts of anxiety. And it can get them in that headspace where they can now go do what they got to do.
That is performance enhancing.
I'm not saying she should have got banned, but I can see it.
Right.
I can see how it's weird.
But, you know, one thing I was thinking about when you were mentioning things that can just enhance your mood.
Right.
Create them.
Right.
So before podcasts podcasts i'll use
a little bit sometimes and i my mood is better conversations better but also use it sometimes
before jujitsu and again when my mood is better and i feel like i'm able to get into a better flow
my jujitsu is better right this is performance enhancing straight up if i take this before a
tournament which i've done before, it is performance enhancing.
So it's like, what, where is that line?
You know, because some athletes can get so much more out of these little things and other athletes can.
So it's, it's, it's kind of crazy.
Kratom, I think is like a advantage for me in business.
You know, it helps me with creativity um i think i think we have to maybe define uh
what we consider to be performance enhancing and what like why are some of these drugs illegal in
the first place i think it's easy for people to kind of point out uh people kind of tend to point
out the fact that like we don't want our kids to do it. Well, I mean, how many of us are guilty of drinking in front of our children all the time?
And not only drinking, but getting drunk in front of our children.
Getting drunk, like drunk drunk.
Like knocking over dishes and breaking shit.
Becoming a different person.
Becoming a different person right in front of your kid.
Getting a little sloppy.
That's not great for your passing out on the couch.
That shit ain't good for your kid to see,
you know?
And so I think we have to kind of define like,
what are the reasons?
My point there being is that I think that people kind of pick and choose what
they feel is morally right and morally wrong.
And they do so a lot of times out of convenience.
That's wrong.
I don't like what that athlete's doing right there.
That's unfair, you know, but meanwhile, they might be kind of times out of convenience. That's wrong. I don't like what that athlete's doing right there. That's unfair.
You know, but meanwhile, they might be kind of doing some of the they might be guilty of some of the same things.
And I would be the first person to admit I'm a walking contradiction fucking all day long.
I mean, I'm fighting with myself all day long, kind of all the time.
Yeah.
And that's just the way you phrase that was kind of funny.
Fucking all day long. He only to go mark um but you remember michael phelps like uh when
there was that big scandal because he smoked hella weed and they're like michael phelps smokes weed
and like they take a big old bong rip yeah like legit the media like he was kind of shadow banned
by the media for a minute like he wasn't on cereal boxes for a bit because he smoked weed.
I think we need to just back everything up a bit and kind of think, why are we putting anybody on a pedestal?
What is that for?
Why do we do that?
Why do we think that Simone Biles is going to be just that much different than every other person on the planet?
She's not going to be like just that much different than every other person on the planet. Like she's not going to be a normal person. You know, when she was young, like just watching some of the movie,
I don't know what's true and what's not true, but you know, she had to make a lot of sacrifices to
go towards her goals, which everybody can say, well, yeah, everyone's got to do that. But
she didn't have a normal childhood because she was an amazing athlete. She was a gifted athlete.
So she had to put a lot of time and effort into that.
I would imagine part of her anxiety issue,
if she does have an anxiety issue,
whatever the issue that she has in particular,
I'd imagine a lot of that's caused by gymnastics,
about the weight that you have to be.
She couldn't really have a boyfriend.
She just wanted to be, at least again,
from this movie that I saw,
which I have no idea what's true or what's not true. It seemed like she really wanted to be at least again from this movie that i saw which i have no
idea what's true what's not true it seemed like she really wanted to kind of ride the line between
being like a normal child and being the greatest of all time uh in gymnastics and uh at least from
the perspective of the people around her they were like can't really have it both ways you got to go this way and so she did did the movie talk at all about larry nassar was mentioned i don't think i don't
know i don't know i know that that uh she had a particular coach in the movie and um you know had
her uh her grandparents i believe adopted her and stuff like that but i don't know if it talked
specifically is that a coach that she has larry nassar was that gymnastics coach that the u.s gymnastics team was protecting for decades because he was very good but he was
sexually assaulting and just doing just weird shit with so many gymnasts so that wasn't in
in that that that part wasn't in the movie at all and i think because i because in the movie she
had a female she has a female coach she has two female coaches. And I kind of thought that that was interesting because I was like, I thought for sure somewhere in the back of my mind, I was like, I thought I remember her being represented with somebody else as well. And so maybe they just were like, let's just not even communicate with this about this at all yeah but you know that the whole simone biles situation is super freaking
interesting um because number one she has she's there's no question who the goat of gymnastics is
literally no question like with basketball we're questioning okay mj or lebron or kobe or people
can't even do the shit that she does they made rules i think it's it's called the bile something i forgot the second
word but they made specific rules because there would be certain tricks that people could only do
two flips in the air and she was doing three and they're like well that's sick we can't give you
any like they they they're like okay we're not going to give tens past this so even if she would
do something just insane they're like well you know we gotta
gotta bring that down so everyone else can compete right right like that that in and of itself is
crazy so she's already the goat but the one thing that okay this we're going to talk a lot about
this but the side i find kind of firstly interesting is the way that this was portrayed
in the media as far as you know, her having to bow
out because, okay, it makes sense why she had to bow out.
The girl has ADHD.
Like you mentioned, Mark, her medication is banned in Japan, right?
So obviously she's already going in, not being able to compete like she usually does with
the medication she needs to be able to perform at a high level.
And then she says she has the twisties.
So the twisties are when you're,
you're in the air,
you're,
and you don't have proprioception.
So she literally couldn't tell what her body was doing in the air,
which is why she fumbled.
And which is why she's like,
okay,
I can't do this.
Imagine that.
Imagine trying to do multiple flips in the air and you can no longer tell
what your body's doing.
That's just unsafe.
What if she hits her neck?
What if like we all want her to compete but at the end of the day nobody really cares about the athlete after they get injured no you
think about that right like kevin durant when he when he uh his achilles thing right that happened
because he was like i'm gonna try to play for golden state and then he tore his achilles and
nobody cared for nobody cared for that year about kevin durant so we don't even care about these athletes afterwards but the thing
that's interesting and there's two sides to this a lot of people are like what she did was brave
as much as i can understand what's being said there and i do believe that it's a great decision she made to bow out of it when we look
at other athletes in other sports that let's say you know an athlete misses some major free throws
or for example the the jordan flu game right when we just look at the way these stories are put
forward if jordan had the flu and he didn't play in that game and they lost, it wouldn't be,
it wouldn't,
the story wouldn't have been that he was brave for coming out because he was
sick.
You know what I mean?
It would have been that this guy gave up what his team needed him the most.
That's how the media would have put it forward,
which sucks.
I'm not saying that that's good,
but that's like whenever a big athlete doesn't come in at crunch time and I'm
not an Olympic athlete or anything.
So people like no one knows her situation.
The narrative is never positive for that athlete.
It's always like they're weak.
They they they mentally weren't there.
They didn't come in in the clutch.
Right.
So I think that there is a weird thing when we're like, this is so brave.
weird thing when we're like this is so brave that jargon because i've never seen that done with any athlete in the past with this type of thing being the issue i'm saying it is powerful to admit
vulnerability when you're that powerful of a person yeah and uh let's also just kind of think
about it like um let's say let's say the three of us are teammates and, um, we've been together for,
we've been together as kids for the last 12 years.
And now the three of us are in the Olympics and I go out and I go to do
whatever sport it is that I'm doing.
And I just realized like,
it ain't in the cards.
Like it's not going to happen.
I could potentially get hurt.
It doesn't look like I'm going to win.
And I may as well give an opportunity to one of you guys i'm you know and so it could be something that simple
but we'll never really know because it's get it gets so twisted around by uh by media and then
once it's out there and then people have their own take on it and some people are saying like
you mentioned the two flips thing well somebody might say hey you know is someone capable of
doing three flips because of the drug that she took?
Some people would say, look, I don't have any idea, right?
Some people that know a lot about performance enhancing drugs would say, yeah, maybe, because
if you're performance enhanced every time you go out and you can exponentially just
get a tiny fraction of a bit better than somebody else,
I'm not saying that that's the case.
I think that Simone Biles is an athlete that maybe people have just never seen before.
And so people just don't even know what the fuck to do with it in some regards.
And so I have a lot of respect for her.
I'm a huge fan.
I hope that things work out well for her,
but it seems like she's just going to get
really dumped on hardcore about this.
And maybe she legitimately has a lot of anxiety.
And this is just going to be that much harder.
It's going to make her situation that much more tough.
Yeah, and I'm sorry,
I wasn't following anything with the Olympics,
but was she
competing this this olympics yeah she was okay was she also dominating or was it was she not
because she couldn't she was looked at to be the favorite yeah like she like with everything she's
done she was expected to take the um thing it's called the singles all around or something like
that which is like her shit right and she was supposed to like dominate in the group too like she legitimately
is unbeatable yeah there's no other gymnast that's like her so there was then there's no
case of like oh shit she's actually not gonna win so she bows out to kind of like you know kind of
almost um avoid losing well so there is that bowing out because like she knows
she literally she legitimately her body can't perform and she will lose like you fall in the
air like you're gonna lose right i can't even walk straight sometimes because of like my equilibrium
being all weird from vertigo right spinning in the air but you know the the crazy thing is like i saw this one this one white dude what's
his name charlie kirk or something there's this dude that like sounds like a white name that
sounds like a white name yes charlie kirk um but he was saying some wild shit like and this is this
is what i can't get beyond i can i can understand us like okay let's look at the way it's portrayed
in the media and we can definitely see that this
specific situation through every like through every big time athlete that's been criticized
for not performing and crunch time it's never been positive right and the fact that this is positive
it could be looked at positively in a way that okay maybe we're now actually paying attention to some mental health of athletes um but at the same time like he was saying he was saying some shit like she quit
when america needed her most now i have to see a fucking russian with a gold medal on their neck
and then like what the fuck is this weak athlete like when i was listening to him i was like bruh
what a dick like are you serious okay like I get maybe being a little bit critical, right?
Even though you're not in her shoes, I get being a little bit critical and feeling American
patriotism and whatever.
But yo, I wish we could find that clip.
See if you can find a, cause it's bad.
And also Tim Dillon had a great post and great perspective on it.
Oh yeah.
Uh, he made a, uh, an Instagram post and he was like, these people do not represent us.
He's like, they're a byproduct of our athletics that we have.
But let's not put everybody up on such a pedestal that if something bad happens, it's this horrible, horrifying thing.
And I think he went on to kind of say in the post, he said something about like like you're a fat dude like sitting on the couch eating potato chips they don't really they don't really represent what we
have going on here in the united states so i think uh some of the like some of the value assignment
that we've given to the olympics and to these athletes should be more fun should be more
light-hearted i understand for the athletes the severity of it because it happens every four years.
And those videos that they pump out to us, you know, where they talk about the hurdles that this person faced and they get the music going and they try to get you emotionally invested in it.
You're like, oh, shit, like I'm really rooting for this person now.
And you get all hyped up for it.
But I think it doesn't matter if it's an
actor or if it's an athlete i don't think it matters who it is i just don't think that we
should put so much stake into any of these people i think it's important and i heard david goggins
mentioned this recently and he said he basically in short he said i recognized what a piece of
shit i could be he's like and then i started to recognize what a piece of shit everyone else could be as well.
And so when you, it's not saying that everyone's a piece of shit,
not saying that everyone wants to do bad stuff,
but we all have a good side and we all have a bad side.
Everyone has, we all have a yin and we all have a yang.
And there's the people that suppress that a lot and have that kind of hidden in the closet.
Those are usually the worst people.
The people that aren't transparent, the people that don't kind of show that here and there,
people that are kind of guarding that away from people.
They don't want people to ever see that side of them.
And so I think it's important just to understand that it doesn't matter who it is,
whether it's an athlete or somebody you really looked up to your whole life.
They're going to have some traits to them that you're not going to agree with.
Jordan.
Yeah, right?
Oh, absolutely.
You know what's interesting?
You know why this situation is so much more different?
The biggest reason why this situation is so much harder than the Jordan situation where he had that flu game or even how much the media was on him or uh when they talked about tiger woods and they had jordan like at all those
parties all the time and you're like you're like why is jordan getting roasted in this i don't
like this but i mean you know he was up to some uh scandalous shit he was he was that's pretty
funny that'd be like me hanging out with like a bunch of like old school rappers around like hella chicks like it was just like there's all these superstars and then there's
tiger woods just like all dorky in the corner you know like and then finally he finally got it
i kept when i was watching that thing i'm like i'm like why does jordan keep getting shit on? This is not fair. I'm keeping the shit out of it.
Oh, man.
But I was going to say that this is going to be really rough because of social media.
When Jordan was doing his shit back then, there was no Instagram.
There was no continuous bombardment.
Now there's YouTube.
Now there's Instagram.
Now there's all these things where this girl is just going to continue just getting it
from the media and positive sides, which are really good.
I'm glad that we're seeing people that are like positively supporting it, but the negative
sides are dirty.
Like I've seen some people with some just really just like rough takes and I've gone
through comment sections and people are just like, I'm just like, yo, I fucking hate people.
I think the one, the one thing that people don't realize is, again, what you mentioned about the medication and why she, like, how that affects her.
Like, one thing is that ADHD medication.
I wonder if it puts her even with everybody else.
Or if it puts her way above.
Because a friend that I was talking to that has ADHD was mentioning this to me.
above because a friend that i was talking to that as adhd was mentioning this to me she was saying how like um something like ritalin or adderall or whatever for someone like people like us like we
don't have adhd it doesn't do the same thing as someone who does right so it brings her to a place
where probably she's pretty like she can now focus like she can now do everything the way she needs
to do it and if she's not able to do that, yo,
people don't realize like what athletes go through in terms of sacrificing
their bodies.
They don't,
they don't like if this athlete hurts themselves seriously,
no,
it's no one else's responsibility,
but like their own.
It brings up a lot of questions.
Cause now what if,
uh,
another athlete's like,
well,
I don't recover as fast as other guy.
Cause look,
my testosterone levels and growth hormone levels are much lower than his naturally so i would like to be able to take some
of that just to be even with them right now you're like or i don't know if if it did help her that
much or i don't know if i'm a competitor i'd be like dude i can't focus for shit so i need some
adderall or i need whatever it is because Cause you're right. I remember in like elementary school when I learned what Ritalin was,
I remember hearing like,
Oh,
for somebody that needs it,
it can calm them down.
But if I don't need it and I take it,
it like shoots me back up to like,
you know,
being like super high level,
uh,
energy,
I should say.
But,
uh,
kind of what you were saying though,
and seem about like her,
um,
when,
when she bowed out and the,
the different views about some positive
some negative it reminds me a lot of um a couple years back when a bunch of nfl players started
retiring early um the name slipped my mind barry sanders that was a big he left at 30 he was like
i'm out people were like no you can't leave yeah that one hurt me and i'm not even a Barry Sanders fan, of course. But the linebacker for the Niners, fuck is his name, Monster.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
We'll think of it.
It'll hit me.
But when he retired early, I'm like, dude, what are you doing?
We're going on another Super Bowl run.
You're going to quit now?
People pooping on him?
Yeah, there was a lot of people that did.
And then, of course, the other side of it, which is the positive side of like well hey he's putting his he's made enough money he's putting his health
first i mean shit would any of us do it differently like i don't think so so it just reminds me of
that you know eventually it will blow over but it it's weird about the positives and negatives
that you people especially social media these days fucking what do you guys think about like the like the fairness of it you know like um do you do you think it's do you think it's fair for
somebody who who has it you know a particular issue to be on like we're in a time where everything's
like really inclusive right so you would say okay well that person has a mental and i'm putting in
quotes just because it's so hard to even tell what someone's mental issue might be.
It's hard to really get a real diagnosis.
It's not like someone's knee is, it's not like their meniscus is torn, which you could evaluate very easily.
This is something quite different.
So, you know, what do you think?
Like somebody needs medication.
Are they eligible to be in something like the Olympics?
the athletes are going to look at it is like this it's like oh okay well i'm an athlete i'm produce a lot of testosterone blah blah blah i have this but but then this person they can take this
medication so that they can try to be even with me that what so why don't i take that medication
so i can get even farther it's like it's it could be you know and and i'm not saying this is actually
the case but a gymnast could see simone biles and maybe they're probably gymnasts who have known her situation, who maybe knows that she has to take these things.
And a lot of those gymnasts are probably like the only reason she can do that is because she's taking these drugs.
There are probably a lot of gymnasts that were thinking this before, right?
Because she's been able to take this at every other Olympics and every other competition.
And it was only those medications were banned in Japan.
So there are probably a lot of gymnasts that look at it like oh look now like she's like the rest of
us right so it's that's that's that's a tough one yeah almost like she's uh without her spinach like
popeye or something without her spinach yeah i i think kind of what you've said in the past mark
like we're not supposed to have the same advantages we are supposed to like me and nsema like i could take whatever anything under the sun and if we go do jujitsu
he's gonna kick my ass um flip it around and i don't i don't know like make me edit a podcast
episode and i'll take me 72 hours correct yeah you know so like there's gonna be some disadvantages
here and there and that's just kind of the way it's supposed to be but it does get weird when
you know like uh brian right now on the live chat was just like i'm down for anybody can
take whatever they want as long as it's not in combat sports and i have to agree with that
yeah yeah that is that's a interesting thing because um you know could change the landscape
of of many different sports um yeah, yeah, I find it also
interesting that it's illegal in Japan and, uh, just even like, I mean, it's a whole separate
topic, but the government trying to protect you, uh, from certain drugs and certain things,
I think in the case of Japan, I think they, uh, have made it illegal because there's fear that
people will be like abusing the shit out of it,
which is interesting of it in and of itself. Um, I always think, I personally think that drugs
should be decriminalized. I think, uh, the route that, uh, Oregon has gone, I think is,
is a smart way to go. I'm sure that comes with its, uh, its fair share of, uh, issues and problems.
There's, there's no, there's no safe way out of really anything, but
the fact that it's illegal there, but you can use
it in the Olympics is kind of weird. That raises just even more questions
like how is it possible
that it's not banned in the Olympics already? That seems interesting to me.
Yeah, it's funny.
And earlier we were talking about, you know, psychedelics and psychedelics off air.
Actually, I went on USADA and WADA's website and I just searched psilocybin.
Nothing came up.
I did search kratom and something did come up on USADA's website saying that it's not
prohibited, but athletes are advised to steer clear for health reasons,
so at least something came up.
But I tried all kinds of random search terms,
and I couldn't find anything on the banned substance list
for some of these psychedelics.
So I don't know.
I can try Ritalin, I guess,
but I found it interesting that I couldn't find anything.
Louis Simmons in Bigger, Stronger, Faster,
he said, you know, what are they going to do when they find something that works better than steroids?
And I think that's kind of what we're starting to get into.
I mean, people are going to make people are already using cocktails right now in in this Olympics that are going on right now that far surpass anything a steroid can do.
They're using them right now and they're not getting popped for
it because they are ahead of, they're ahead of what's going on. And they're probably just taking
things that are slightly manipulating some of the chemistry of the brain. Some of the stuff that we
hear, some like Andrew Huberman talking about, I mean, there's crazy modifications, uh, that you
can make, um, and, and figure out ways of getting ahead absolutely and the focus factor that that
can give you i mean you know what i didn't know was an olympic sport sharp shooting i thought it
was so interesting i saw a clip of like like some sharp shooting the other day and these ladies are
just standing like this it's not a real gun it's digital it's very interesting to watch really
because you you can't like think about it like if you're doing a sharp shooting thing you can't have
a real gun because if a competitor is like loses their shit and gets mad at somebody else.
Bam.
So they're shooting like they're shooting at a target and it's not bullets.
Nothing's coming out.
It's just like it's just like a site and the screen will show where the site managed to hit sharpshooting.
That's it.
Anyway, you can pull up a video of it.
Look up Olympic sharpshooting.
You'll see.
Now, just think
of if someone was able to use like something that could increase their focus i mean there's
there's yeah hoopman has talked about some cocktails that can really increase your focus
when you're working out etc and those supplements aren't banned in the olympics some competitors
know about them some don't you know what i mean um so just think about the the advantage that that can give
people i believe it's pretty common in the military yeah yeah you so now when you think
about our military you're like yeah man i hope they're supplied with whatever they need
to get their job done absolutely oh wow that is crazy looking yeah yeah but yeah bullets nothing
nothing's coming out but um it's interesting does Such a bummer. Does the gun cock back?
There's no recoil.
I like that one right there.
She doesn't even have it.
Right?
She's warming up.
It looked funny because she didn't have anything in her hand.
So many things I didn't know were like Olympic sports.
Oh, yeah.
Things like tennis.
Pick up basketball.
Yeah, pick up basketball.
Wasn't it like three on three or something?
Yeah, something like that. Half court. Wow. pick up basketball three yeah pick up yeah it was like three on three or something yeah it's
something like that half court wow huh like the and one mixtape tour is a fucking olympic sport
it's so wild but um this threw me off so much i had something i was gonna say and i completely
lost my train of thought because i didn't know that virtual reality was already an olympic sport woman's 10 million 10 meter air pistol um
but but yeah like that's why i was saying at the beginning of this episode when uh we were
talking about derrick some of these things i'm actually very curious about them you know i mean
like pedogia agrestis i don't think i've had a problem with my testosterone or anything but like
i wonder what that type of stuff could do And it makes me wonder natural bodybuilding federations.
You know what I mean?
Like there's,
there's this list of all these substances.
Will they ban a root?
Like,
will they ban something like that?
If it,
if it does have that much of a benefit towards,
and it's also rough because it's like when we,
when we had Bob on,
we were talking about that,
that like the,
the,
the band substances on that, on, on on we were talking about that that like the the banned
substances on that on on those things it's unfortunate that like let's say a guy only has a
free test of like 300 or 350 but they're really interested in competing in natural bodybuilding
they want to go on a bunch of steroids or whatever and they just want to get themselves to normal
level and they can't compete because they want to get to a healthy, normal range, it's unfortunate.
It is unfortunate.
You know, I think some of the reasons why some of these substances might be banned would
be potentially the safety of the athlete.
Of course.
And then I guess like just trying to keep things fair, like a fairness level, right?
trying to keep things fair, like, like a fairness level, right? Like, um, just everyone, you're trying to get everybody to play under the same rules, right? You don't want anybody else like
being able to play a different game. And so you're like, uh, each person's going to have
similar circumstances. Like if we're to go out in the street and we're to like race, um, we're
going to, we're going to start the race at a certain time.
Like someone's going to say go or going to go off or something's going to happen.
And then we're going to go X amount of distance.
And if I go before the gun goes off or if I go before someone says go, then I cheated.
I, you know, I stepped out ahead of everybody else, right?
You're trying to, I think, set up a similar set of circumstances but
i think uh or i know that the circumstances are never similar they're they're way off base i mean
simone biles got adopted by her grandparents and when there was a riff at the facility that she was
at where she was getting coached, her grandparents bought a gym and built
a gym for her. Like who else has access to that? You know, good on her grandparents for kicking
ass in life. Right. And I think they invested in some real estate and they, but that's not usually
the, you know, who, who else had similar circumstances? What about the kid that, uh,
had always had shitty coaches, you know, um, and just, what about the kid that uh had always had shitty
coaches you know um and just or didn't have the right equipment you know they talk about like
bo jackson he didn't have half the equipment that was necessary to do like the decathlon
and the first time he pole vaulted he kicked everyone's ass because he just he because he's
bo jackson he just fucking figured it out. So there's always unfair advantages.
People are taller, people are a little bit stronger,
people start out a little bit further ahead.
I don't really know what's right to do.
I don't think it sounds right to just say,
oh, you can just do whatever you want.
And my main reason for that is people would just,
they might just load up and do real crazy wild stuff.
And then you end up in a position of bodybuilding and powerlifting.
Yeah.
You know, I, I would, if powerlift, if I could, if I would have done my whole powerlifting
career naturally, I would still probably be powerlifting.
But because I did it the way that I did it, I don't want to pay the same price. I don't want to, uh, the, the risk on my health to be 300 pounds and be that big.
Uh, and to do, I mean, I guess naturally, I guess I would have to be bigger anyway,
maybe just in accordance to like my height, uh, to get the strength that I would be looking for.
But I've, I hear people sometimes talk about like wanting to
come back into bodybuilding or want to come back into power of thinking like i'm not going to mess
with it because i don't want to have to get on all that shit again because you can't once you
have kind of gone that route you already played that card and now you're you know you're just
doing something different so i mean i i don't know how far people would take it i mean there's only
so much shit you can inject i know firsthand there's only so much you can take and so much
you can do but people would die yeah i mean people are dying anyway but people would die
uh because of like epo and things like that and you'd have to so now it's like okay well let's
just say you know everyone gets to get on whatever they want, but then they get with a company like Merrick who can guide them through it and talk them through it.
And it's like, quote unquote, safe.
But like, who's to determine what's safe?
And will people cheat that system and try to figure out how to have their testosterone levels not show up as high when they get?
I mean, it just causes a whole nother mess, right?
No matter what, there's going to be cats that will look for.
I mean, whenever you do anything, even in your training, you're looking for a training advantage, right?
You're looking for the littlest things that can make the biggest difference for you.
Supplementation.
I mean, et cetera.
Everyone's always looking for something that can give them a little edge, especially when it comes to competition.
In jiu-jitsu, there's sometimes like little cheap things people will do in a match
just to kind of hang in there and hang on and win, right?
Yeah, yeah, especially with –
Not necessarily outside the rules, but it's just kind of like – it's kind of cheap, right?
Yeah, like for example, if you're on top of somebody let's say that you they're in a
bottom position sometimes the ref will call or they'll make you guys stand up if it seems that
no one's doing anything so some guys will just act like they're doing stuff or act like they're
struggling a little bit so they'll be like oh busy work so yeah so the ref won't make them move
um so yeah there's a lot of cheap things that go on. Doing a flop like Vladi Divac.
The king.
Literally the Sacramento king.
But you did mention Merrick real quick.
So we got to mention, guys, if you have never gotten your blood work done, you're leaving too much under the table because you don't know what's going on inside your body with your levels, with your cholesterol, with all of these different things.
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Yeah, I got my blood work done recently.
I have an appointment on Tuesday to talk to one of their doctors.
I'm excited for that to kind of hear what they have to say.
Looked like everything checked out really well.
So I'm pretty pumped about that.
My wife got her blood work done and like you can't find a healthier person on the planet nice i don't know what the hell she's doing it must be all the wine she's
drinking maybe it's preserving the body i'm not sure but something's working over there so wine
it's amazing i'm gonna get my mom on it i mean i want to get my mom everything everything checked
with her it's it's huge yeah why not i know absolutely and then
they also even do like hair loss treatment stuff like that i'm just like oh my gosh like they cover
everything all the ins and outs can they save me uh i don't think so yeah but maybe maybe they can
we also have heard from you know female athletes that have had their metabolism and their bodies
just kind of messed up from trying to like over diet and trying to be skinny.
And we know some guy athletes, too, that have competed before that have done something similar.
So when I get everything checked out to see to see what's going on and then you can make a better judgment call about your nutrition,
about your supplementation, and you'll do it with the guidance of Merrick.
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Head over to Merrick health dot com.
That's M.A.R.E. Absolutely. Head over to MerrickHealth.com. That's M-A-R-R-E-K-Health.com slash Power Project. You guys will see the Power Project panel that
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Again, MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject.
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Put that in your cart and at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject for $101 off.
Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes.
Mark, I did want to hit back on this, what you had said.
You said if it wasn't for PEDs, you would still be doing powerlifting, or I guess to what extent you can explain.
I think this is a really cool topic because i know what you're
getting at as far as like hey like open up the floodgates everybody can do whatever you want
at your own risk but it seems like a lot of these olympic sports just in general like
if you're going that hard it's not healthy anyways right and there are like you said people are are
dying um i don't know if it's fair to say that if we did open up
the floodgates that more people would die i my argument is if it's more open whether it be like
like the epo thing you said we would have protocols for making sure that you don't do this
and this is a little silly to say but like hey if if you are in a non-drug or whatever drug tested federation, and if you are on EPO, you must get rid of like this amount of blood per like whatever cycle, you know, to keep your.
So you don't die.
Keep your hematocrit at a decent level.
I think maybe it could lead to stuff like that.
I know this is kind of like a pipe dream or needle dream, syringe dream at this point.
But I just think maybe it would shine some light on some stuff and help people do it safer.
You know, I don't know how dangerous.
I don't know if anyone really knows how dangerous these drugs are.
I think we'll find out more and more.
They just haven't been around that long.
You know, people utilizing PEDs and stuff like that.
It's been going on for a bit and we've seen bodybuilders die,
powerlifters die, strongman athletes die.
It's hard to directly equate it to
the drugs, but I'm sure they're not helpful.
Having your blood get thicker and being a big person and having your heart have to work that hard and stuff like that.
Probably just it probably is a recipe for disaster.
The one thing I can say about that, though, is these things are.
They're pretty damn reversible and they can you can reverse them fairly quickly.
pretty damn reversible and they can, you can reverse them fairly quickly.
The damage that occurs during that time period though, where you're compromised,
I don't know what that cost is.
I don't think anybody really knows what that cost is quite yet.
The more that we learn about that,
the better off we can be to kind of help protect people because more people, more and more people are using performance enhancing drugs,
even just for physique, just
to look better, feel better, uh, things like that.
But my comment about power, the thing is that it just wouldn't be the same if it wasn't
chasing after, uh, some of those bigger numbers.
Maybe my mind will change, you know, when I'm maybe when I'm 50 or something, maybe
I'll just be like, well, it's just totally different now.
And, uh, I should maybe get back on the platform anyway.
So I don't really know.
But for, for now, it just seems like the, the only way I know how to do it was the way
that I did it.
And, uh, I felt that I pushed out as far as I could.
That's why, like I, in training, it feels really good for me to train now, but there's
some, there's some positive and negatives to it. Like I don't,
I don't really care that much about,
like I literally don't care about the weight that I lift that often here and
there. I get a little excited about pushing something a little heavier.
But like if someone's lifting with me,
I don't care if they're lifting more than me and, and things like that.
It's because it's like, I feel like I already did that, you know, and there's a lot of video and there's a
lot of, you know, you could, you can kind of see all that. I pushed that as far as I thought that
I could. And I thought that I did that as well as I could. So now I just moved on to doing something
else. Also, I mean, back to what you were mentioning earlier when you mentioned, uh,
you know, why some of these things are banned we're already
seeing the emergence of number one information when it comes to steroids protocols etc which is
good because it's helping people learn how to do this stuff safely but with that you're then seeing
teenagers hopping on and doing this freaking teenagers that aren't even playing a sport just guys who want to lift and
gain some muscle start using shit a year in or even once they start lifting they just start
hopping on steroids and it's like you're 16 you're 17 your brain isn't fully developed i mean i heard
uh derrick on a video talking about how trend like young young kids using trend when your brain isn't
fully formed and you're,
you're developing all your hormones are doing all this stuff.
What are the psychological issues it can actually cause?
You know what I mean?
So,
so it's like,
I can see that if this becomes normalized within that level of sport,
the lanes that young people,
because now young people are like,
even if when I was younger,
right. If I was younger, right, if I thought or I saw all Olympians were taking shit, number one, I wouldn't have the resources.
But I would definitely be like, it looks like that's what I need if I want to get there.
And that's the big reason why I don't think it could really ever be something that could happen. Damn it, Encima. Quit making good points. There's a huge trickle-down effect, right?
From the top down, NFL, how are those guys so good?
Obviously, they're amazing athletes and there's a lot involved in that, but
they train year-round, pretty much. As soon as the season's over, they take a week off and they're right back
to it, throwing the football around or catching
passes or whatever their skill is.
They're back in the gym or running or doing something.
Most likely they're doing something, especially if they want to be around for a long time.
The guys that make it, that have been around for a decade and make a great living off of
it, those are people that have taken it very, very seriously.
And so then as you go down to the college level,
it's no longer fun to play football in college for a lot of people
because they are playing it year-round.
Same thing with swimming or anything else.
And then trickle down to when you played soccer.
Soccer is not, you don't just play it for a few weeks or a few months.
You play it for the whole year.
And we've seen that now with baseball and all the other sports have adopted
the same thing.
Even though there's rules in different States about different things,
people find different ways around it and they kind of cheat in a way like
you're not supposed to be playing year round.
They don't want children to be playing year round.
They don't want them to focus in right.
Well,
the,
uh,
the school doesn't want you to necessarily.
So then people make they form
clubs and they find a way outside the lines and you have these young people uh you know compromising
themselves because they think they're going to be a college athlete or they think they're going to be
they're going to be pro so it's a huge kind of trickle down uh effect that that happens and i
agree with uh with your point there about you know younger and younger people getting on stuff and on that same note when i was in
new jersey um walking on jersey shore i saw a lot of young a lot of young kids that were pretty
jacked it was like i was pretty impressed like there was a couple times i saw a couple kids i
mean they're probably somewhere between 15 and 19 i don't not hard to
tell exactly but um as i got closer to them i was like damn they're like from from afar i was like
oh they look like they're kind of built like they don't just look like skinny kids yeah as i got
closer i was like damn they're they're actually like fucking built like they're pretty fit and i
thought that was pretty cool but who knows maybe maybe they're on a little cycle or something in uh in tahoe at the
beaches i think there was only like yeah i don't know it sounds weird but like i think we all do
this but like everyone around me like everyone's having a good time but i'm just like wow that
guy's pretty thick like okay that guy's wearing a full like shirt like damn that sucks and then some young some young kid damn the roast
no okay so this this should not be no joke this should not be okay uh they make you know like for
for kids when they don't want to get sunburned or whatever and they have like the full sleeves
and stuff they make those big enough for dudes like grown men now.
I don't think that should be okay.
Kind of like those shirts that cover your beer gut,
or beer belly.
I don't think that's okay.
We should all be forced to wear crop tops so we get in shape.
Agreed.
Short shorts.
Power Project crop tops.
I'm feeling pretty confident about myself.
He's probably like 18 kid walks by fucking jacked and i was like i would go put my
shirt on i didn't but it was just like damn dude this kid's fucking jacked like i always think
about like if i could go back like i would convince myself to not give up and just go to the gym
but it was funny i was i mean i don't know hopefully i'm not the only one that does that looks around at other dudes well you're here now you're getting jack
now yeah no i always like i i have a tendency of just like looking at people's bodies in terms just
the way they move that's the thing that kind of i zone in and i've been caught staring at people
so much and like guys like oh what are you saying i'm like oh you bro sorry look great or whatever
but i'm just like i wonder how the feet are like yeah i do it all the time i look at how people
stand and yeah all different kinds of stuff i'm like man that must really hurt that person's back
right standing that way or or whatever it might be and for me i you know i'm always trying to
uh like more more recently on my walks and stuff i'm trying to work on like my mobility because
even just when i walk i don't have a stride that's very long.
And I'm like, I need to be able to be more mobile through my hips.
So I've been stretching my hips on my walks and stuff like that.
There we go.
But anyway, it was an amazing time being out there in New Jersey.
Great looking house, by the way.
Yeah.
That place looked like it was out of a Disney movie or something.
It was beautiful.
Yeah, it was a beautiful house.
And we just had an amazing time and for you uh youngsters here andrew and sema i strongly
suggest you figure out a way even though they're annoying try to get around your family as much as
you can and uh like in my in my family on on my dad's side of the family it's very very family
oriented like there's it's it's not necessarily, it's very, very family oriented. Like there's, it's, it's not
necessarily about, it's not necessarily just about getting everybody together. It's about getting
everybody together for the kids. And that's what I always thought was so cool and so special.
And when I moved out here to California and did stuff with Andy's family, uh, they get together
and stuff like that too, but there's just really, it it's not they're not as honed in on a focus of like, let's go do
this and let's all go do this together, even though even though some stuff is like boring
and it might kind of suck.
Let's just all go do it because some fun shit will happen from it.
And so my kids really like it a lot.
And my kids don't even really like the beach, but they just love seeing like their cousins and stuff like that so we had an amazing time awesome that's sick and i gotta
get better at doing the extended family stuff yeah you know like our circle is really tight
we're good but you know my cousin that listens to this show he invites us almost every summer to
like this big it's always last minute and it's like oh we don't have enough space but you guys
should totally come and it's like all right man i i gotta get out there more it's uh it's always last minute and it's like oh we don't have enough space but you guys should totally come and it's like all right man i i gotta get out there more it's uh it's transformative
in a lot of ways like when i talk to like one of my uncles and i talk to one of my aunts and i talk
to somebody else i'm like okay that's where like that's where a lot of my mentality has come now
now it all makes sense i'm like that's okay i'm like i get it like
the entire family is either a teacher or coach um so here i am you know preaching the gospel of
nutrition and training you know as much as i possibly can and sharing information and it's
like each one of my and each one of my family members is always talking about doing less they're
like yeah i've been thinking about and you know that they're never going to do it i'm like i'm
talking like that all the time too but i'm'm a fucking crazy person. I'm not going to
slow down. So it's really interesting to
kind of find these people that I don't even spend
any time with anymore. I haven't in years. And they're
very, very similar to me. And I'm like, this is so weird.
This is so strange. Anyway, Andrew, you want to me. And I'm like, this is so weird. This is so strange.
Anyway, Andrew, you want to take us on out of here? Absolutely. Uh, eat right foods.com
and Merrick health.com slash power project links to them down in the description below.
Thank you to both of them for sponsoring today's episode. And thank you to you guys
that have been clicking those links and, uh, utilizing some of these awesome benefits that
we've been able to bring to you and some amazing, whether it be food or these awesome services, we're not going to bring you something that
sucks. I did read a comment the other day. It was an old clip that we did about which supplements
work and which don't. And somebody's like, I'm not going to believe anything that a podcast says
that's sponsored by a supplement company. It's like, well, okay, that makes sense. But on the
other side of it is
like, this is shit that we just use every single day. So we're not going to just do something
because it makes money. All right. Just want to lay that out there. Please follow the podcast
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promise I've been lagging on it, but it's coming my instagram and twitter is at i am andrew z and sema where are you at guys head
to itunes and review us and also make sure to subscribe on youtube but i want to read this
great review uh yeah i have a vagina and love this show i listen to 90 of their podcasts because they
relate to my goals even though I'm a woman.
Very informative.
I've tried some of their sponsors stuff
and it's legit too.
Hell yeah.
So, ladies.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, leave us some reviews, peeps.
Add Antima Inning on Instagram and YouTube.
Add Antima Yin Yang on TikTok and Twitter, Mark.
She has a vagina?
She has a vagina.
Oh my gosh.
Wow, that's great information.
Yes.
Yes, it is.
Thank you. a vagina she has a vagina oh my gosh great information yes yes it is thank you
i'm at mark smelly bell strength is never a weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later bye