Mark Bell's Power Project - Going Natty After 9 Years of PED Abuse - Pete Rubish || MBPP Ep. 928

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Pete Rubish, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about Pete's journey going from nine years of using and abusing PED's to quitting them cold turkey. Follow Pete on IG: https://www.instagram.com/pete.rubish/   New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code PowerProject to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off!   ➢ https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order!   ➢ https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢ https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en    Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

I was on anabolic steroids and ran cycles for nine years. So one and a half grams of test, right? Threw that in as well. Is that an exaggeration or does your head actually feel pressurized? It feels pretty pressurized. How long did you hold on to those gains? And do you think it's possible for people to hold on to any remains of the gains that they got from anabolic steroids?

My body weight dipped down to about 210 at the lowest from 250. Lifting was my entire life. Everything else got cast aside. I don't necessarily regret it, but I would have done things differently. I can't convince someone not to do it. If I tell an 18-year-old and he's completely convinced, it's not going to matter. I guess you're also, at least at the moment, kind of a good example of somebody that did roll the dice and kind of won.

Power Project family, how's it going? We have an amazing episode for you today with powerlifting legend Pete Rubish. You may be familiar with his motivational videos where he's been seen deadlifting 700, 800, 900 pounds with a massive amount of ferocity. But today we have more chill Pete on the podcast. He's been off PEDs for a few years and he talks about his experience now utilizing nothing and training pretty much totally natural. He also talks about his trend use in the past and how interesting and potentially dangerous of a drug trend is, along with his experience utilizing PEDs for nine years from the ages of 20 to 29. Now, once again, we talk about PEDs a lot in this episode, so we do not suggest that anyone go on performance enhancing drugs.

And it is something that you need to have massive amounts of thought before you think of doing that. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple, we'd love if you'd help the podcast grow by giving us a rating or review. Five stars. And if you're on YouTube, subscribe to the channel, like the video, and enjoy this amazing podcast with the legend, Pete Rubish. That's a long time ago, guys. We're a long time ago. Oh, man. What in the hell is going on, Pete Rubish?

Everything. Life's changing. Just getting older and I'm a washed up meathead now. Yeah, you and I were talking about like lifting light and like doing bodybuilding stuff and getting like a pump. Things up meathead now. Yeah, you and I were talking about lifting light and doing bodybuilding stuff and getting a pump. Things are so shitty now. I know. The heavy weights are no longer a thing as much. I mean, I still push myself,

but it's a lot more bodybuilding work, a lot of isolation work compared to before, so that's changed a lot. I'll still bench twice a week, squat once a week, deadlift once a week, but a lot more lateral raises, curls, things like that. And, you know, we talked about these are muscles I never trained before, so it's all kind of new to me.

It's kind of fun. Just something different. Yeah. Huge transition, too, away from performance-enhancing drugs. And did you have some sort of moment where, like, Jesus came down and he had a conversation with you he's like you need to come back to the good side you've been on the dark side for a long time like what happened and what made led to some of those decisions yeah so I mean I was on

anabolic steroids and ran cycles for nine years right I started when I was 20 and then up until 29 that's when I came off so I was was actually, I'd just done a meet. I tried a pretty big cycle. It was the biggest cycle of my life going into that meet. So the last two weeks, this wasn't during the whole duration of the cycle, but the last two weeks I was doing 1,500 milligrams of testosterone and enthate. So one and a half grams of test, right? Very high amount.

Would have been cool to see uh what my test levels were like at that point and then 1200 npp so one 1.2 grams npp on nandrolone pp oh yeah it's like the uh short fast acting version of deca with less sides i think so it kicks in quicker you don't get all the bad sides you get with Deca. Threw that in as well. Then there's got to be some orals. It's not an official cycle unless we're on three things at one time. Got to get all the food groups in there. Cover your bases. I was doing Anovar

for a while, about 50 milligrams a day. I love Anovar. It's my favorite. That was. At the end, I came off that and did Halo testing because i tried to combine them so i was trying to do halo and anivar at the same time and the liver toxicity was way too much to handle um to the point like you would take it and within 30 minutes you want to throw up because you couldn't even i couldn't even sit up i'd be laying on the couch and i'd just be like i feel

awful i feel like i'm gonna. The heartburn's nice. Oh, it's just so much. The heartburn wasn't too bad, but the blood pressure too, where your head feels like it's going to explode. Yeah, it was really healthy stuff. Let me ask you this. Is that an exaggeration or does your head actually feel pressurized? It feels pretty pressurized.

You get a headache like legitimately 30 minutes after the halo testing. So you get the nausea because your liver is getting it's under serious stress and this i was taking too much i the last two weeks i tried to go 40 milligrams of halo which is a absurd dose you want to do about 20 i mean i'm not telling anybody to do that but if you're a standard dose a standard dose would be 20 he's just broken semen yeah i know i like, I'm not condoning this, but. Made his gorilla mind go down the wrong pipe. I'm not giving advice here.

Fucking lost. You do 20 milligrams. And I'm like, let's go 40 because I really want to pull 900 officially. I've done it in training, right, a few times. I was like, I got to get it knocked out in a meet. And in the end, did I get it done? No. So I got the 904 to my knees and that was it.

But that's kind of the long backstory. And then after that, my wife was like, if we're going to have a baby, let's do it now, come off now. So after the meet, I decided to come off November. And then, you know, here we are, been off for two and a half years. So it's been a wild ride. And at first, when you started, when you started to come off, how long did you hold on to those gains, and do you think it's possible for people to hold on to any remains of the gains that they got from anabolic steroids the more distance they get from it?

I think if you come off completely, absolutely not. You're going to lose, like, everything for the most part. That's not to say there's not some degree of muscle memory, but within a year it was, it was all gone. I mean, I went back, it felt like almost a square one,

not entirely obviously because you've still been training a while, but I want to say bench dip down to about three 15 and it was at a four 85 at the peak in training in a meet four 63. So it went all the way back down to 315, 300-ish. Deadlift got down to like six from nine. And it was a rapid loss of muscle and strength over the course of months. So the first couple months, you're still hanging on to quite a bit, even though your test levels are dipping.

Six months or so, maybe, you can kind of hold on to some stuff yeah i'd say up to eight even and then as you get closer to that year you just it's all gone it's like if i had gone trt i think i could have maintained a lot of it not been quite as strong but maintained quite a bit of that strength but it just uh my body weight dipped down to about 210 at the lowest from 250, 255. And right now I'm walking around about 220, 225, depending on how well I'm eating. Any warnings to people that are going to go, because you decided not to go the TRT route. I don't think you had other interventions.

A good friend of mine has said that he thinks that if young people, especially are going to come off testosterone cycles, he thinks that they should look into maybe taking medication for their mind and for their, you know, so they don't get like depressed and stuff. Do you think that some people should look into that or like what was your experience? Yeah, I mean, it was really tough mentally. I felt pretty depressed at various times because your sense of identity is gone. Think about it. Your whole life, not your whole life, but the last 10, 15 years, everyone's known you as this really strong guy. You're known for your deadlift, your strength and being jacked and all that. And that's your whole basis of what people know you for. And then that's kind of stripped away completely where there's no more, you know,

you're not getting the compliments. You're not getting all the attention. It fades away. It faded away fast. And you're just another guy at that point. And that was tough. It was like a transition to where, um, that was probably one of the toughest things. You have to kind of come to terms with that and redefine yourself as we talked about. Um, but it's taken years, you know, it's been two and a half years and just now I'm kind of becoming comfortable with who I am now, and I still have the knowledge. I've still done what I've done, hit the numbers I've hit, and I'm at peace with that,

but now it's kind of time to pivot to a new life, and I still coach plenty of guys in powerlifting. I'm still immersed in the industry, but I just have to do different things myself, so I still train some powerlifting, but it's a lot more bodybuilding. It's a lot more running, different things like that to kind of keep me sane. Um, so it's mentally a lot of guys, the reason they wouldn't come off as it's just very tough. It's you just,

you, you essentially shrivel up, lose all your muscle. You, you lose your strength, you lose your identity. And why would you do that when you can just take TRT? And I even, you know, I've considered going back on it various times. I'm never, I'm not saying I wouldn't like, I think TRT is awesome. You know, I think it's a good thing for a lot of guys. Um, and I have nothing against it, but I just feel decent now. So you have to almost wait. You have to get through that, that tough phase. Yeah. Before you started, uh, you said 20 to 29, you were on. What was your history before that? Were you an athlete?

Were you already lifting quite a bit beforehand? Yes, sir, yeah. So I was in school. I was doing football. I was doing basketball. I was doing track. And I wasn't great at any of them, but, I mean, I started in various sports. And come my senior year, I decided I'm just going to lift

because I did not like being in season in a sport and you lose a lot of your strength. You lose about 10 pounds of body weight from running so much. And I just enjoyed lifting more. So I went all in on that when I was about 18, entering my senior year, dropped all the sports. And, uh, I, but I had that background growing up, even baseball was mixed in. It was just, my parents had me in all different sports all the time year round, I was doing something. Yeah, and I'm kind of curious, kind of from what Mark said, what was the hardest part about coming off?

Because like you mentioned, you literally, you were a different human being at the time. It's like your shape was different. You were still you, but I'm assuming like when you look at videos of when you were pulling and all that, you feel like that's you no no no it's it i look back at that and i can't even identify with those weights i don't know i don't like i don't know because mark's completely transitioned to to a different stage of his life i don't know if you feel that way but like i went to a meet um one time, maybe like a year ago or something like that,

and somebody was lifting some crazy weight. And I look at my brother and I go, these guys are fucking out of their mind. And my brother's like, you were lifting this like two years ago and you had a lot more plates on than what they even have now. So I agree with you 100%. It's like hard to even relate at a certain point. Yeah, it doesn't seem, my mind can't comprehend

like having that much weight on my back, like on a squat, like 800 pounds around there. I can't imagine it. Fuck. It's 900 pound deadlifts. I can't imagine that. So it's completely different now

because you're lifting a fraction of that and your mind's not there. Like I'm not in that, you know, purely lifting as heavy as possible aggression, completely different now because you're lifting a fraction of that and your mind's not there like i'm not in that you know purely lifting as heavy as possible aggression you know kind of kill mode which is how it was it was my whole life lifting was my entire life everything else got cast aside for many of those years because that's what it took to get to that level i felt like you had to go all in there were a lot of sacrifices There were a lot of sacrifices. There were a lot of disruptions. Relationships were more volatile. But that was part of the cost to get to that level.

And I don't necessarily regret it, but I would have done things differently. What about somebody coming to you now? You have your own gym. There's some power lifters in there. And what about someone hitting you up online or in person and saying, yeah, man, I just want to go for it all, man. I'm 20, you know, I moved out of my parents' house and I just, I want to go on a cycle and I want to go

all in. You, you, uh, are you, uh, kind of talking them out of that or like, how do you think you'd handle that situation? Yeah. I mean, guys come to me and their decision is made up. They're going to do it. They're going to do it or they're not. And I can kind of lead them on a path where they do it more responsibly or where I think you'd get more out of it this way. Because if we look at like a John Hack, the very moderate dosages, cycling off, that sort of thing, he's milked his gains for more than if he were just blasting right from the beginning. So I think that's a smarter approach.

I wish I would have done it that way. So I try to tell them, like, we can do this more efficiently. You don't have to go to a trend right away or something like that. But I also, I have guys who come to me and they're like, listen, I don't have anything going for me in my life. I don't have a relationship with my parents. I'm like, this is all I got. I'm going for it.

And I'm like, I completely respect it. I get it. Like, this is their life and that's it. They're going for it. And who am I to tell them, like, no, no, no, no no you got to be more you know cautious when i went just as hard it's like that's what they want that's they're going all in and i don't i don't necessarily have a problem with that so it depends on the circumstance the the context of it but normally yes i try to tell guys like if someone comes to me 18 years old which happens they're like i'm ready

to jump on like just just wait a little bit you haven't even optimized your training yet like give it even two years wait till you're 20 uh things like that or just let's start out with a very moderate test dose so i try to steer people properly rather than i can't convince someone not to do it if i tell an 18 year old and he's completely convinced it's not going to matter yeah so i try to share my experiences and be very open but i feel like that almost helps people more when you're like this is how you need to do it responsibly maybe wait a little longer cross that road you know i guess you're also at least at the moment kind of a good example of somebody that did roll the dice and kind of won because you got a lot of lifts that you wanted and now you're having a different life

you you uh successfully had to have a child a one-year-old kid right and so um i think some people are like well look at pete rubish it's reversible like some of the damage that you might have done um did you get blood work done when you were taking stuff and and have you seen like more recent blood work have you seen some drastic changes in what's going on i've uh i had a few panels done when i was on cycle but not many because i kind of wanted to bury my head in the sand and not you don't want to see you know it's going to be awful you get one and you're like oh wow that's really bad i'm just not going to really ever do that again yeah and is it really going to stop you from taking stuff when you see that oh my cholesterol and all that's out of whack no you're you're going to keep doing it. So you almost view like, what's the point?

So I don't have a lot of data from that time frame, but it's something I've really, you know, kind of gotten into in recent years. And there were a few boxes left unchecked in my career of what I wanted to do. I wanted to pull a thousand in training, never quite got there. I got 920. I wanted to get that 904 deadlift officially in a meet, never quite got there. But I'm at peace with that. I look back, it was a good run. There were a lot of good numbers, 2100 total. And now I prioritize health more. I prioritize my family. I think it was a natural transition turning 30 where I'm like, I need to be here for my family. I need to be as healthy as possible, be able to spend as much time as I can with my wife and daughter and just take care of them. And I've seen as well, we got to remember,

I was training at the same gym as Dallas McCarver, two different states. So when he was a young up-and-comer, we were the same age, actually. We were about six months age difference apart. He was in Kentucky, in Lexington, Kentucky, with Matt Jansen, training at Lexington Athletic Club. I was there. I'd see him around. I would go to Matt's house, hang out. And then they moved, ironically,

this is complete coincidence, they moved at the same time to Knoxville as I did. So we were all at Max Dow Gym. And Dallas would come in about 1 p.m the gym would be pretty empty he'd just throw around massive weights and 800 pound deadlifter yeah he made me feel insecure because i was like yeah here's this guy who's jacked out of his mind deadlifting the same as me i was like it's not supposed to work like that bodybuilders aren't supposed to be as strong as power he's got no body fat yeah i'm like it's not fair for you to be that jacked and that strong. So I was honestly, and I was on trend, so I was kind of like, you pissed me off.

I kind of had like a little, like we were cordial, but in the back of my head, I'm like, you know, screw this guy trying to beat my deadlift. And then it was funny because Dallas, so this is maxed out Jim, and this is, I believe he's got 100-pound plates on there, so it's 865 or 845. 845. Yeah. He's a big boy.

Listen to this guy. He's got a tricep. This was purely coincidence as well. I wasn't trying to piss him off or anything. He tried a 900-pound deadlift, and then three days later, I had no clue. I pulled 900 for the first time, and I had no idea he had tried it until later.

Yeah. So I was like, he missed the 900 at his knees. And then three days later, I pulled it. I was like, I wasn't trying to do that. I wasn't trying to like. Did he take offense? I don't know. I didn't find this out till a couple weeks later. I was like, oh man, I didn't try to show the guy up.

But he was smoking me on bench and he was doing 200 pound dumbbells on incline for 10 like easy um damn but anyway i mean long story short is he uh he passed away at 26 from a massive heart attack so that made me realize you're not invincible doesn't matter how old you are you can it can get anybody so i don't know if gh and insulin are more of a danger as far as that because those are two things i never touched but um i've had scans done and the my heart is a completely normal size my lungs my kidneys there's no scar tissue ct scans i've had done on all the organs and it's like everything is uh there's no enlargement and he whereas like dallas had massive enlargement of his lungs and kidneys and liver and so i'm almost like is it the GH and the insulin at high doses that does more damage than just purely steroids?

I don't know. It's speculation, but it's something you wonder about. Could even be some of the extra lifestyle of getting super, super big and then super, super lean like both. Like a power lifter might be kind of bulked out for a while or perpetually for a handful of years but a bodybuilder keep going through that cycle of getting really big and shrinking down getting really big maybe there's some things that aren't so safe about some of that practice especially because they keep they're mainly just they're switching their food but they're also switching their drugs you got extremely lean yeah yeah

insanely lean yeah yeah i mean well one thing i wanted to say too is like we talk about the body They're also switching their drugs. You got extremely lean. Yeah, yeah. Insanely lean. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, one thing I wanted to say, too, is like we talk about the body weight thing. That's one reason now I want to be a bit leaner and lighter because we've talked about you get rid of your sleep apnea when you get lighter. Your neck size shrinks down, which plays a role in that. I had that really badly for 10 years, did nothing about it. I had a CPAP, hated it. I would try it out.

I'd try the nasal only mask and I'd try the full mask. And I would just rip it off after like an hour because I wasn't sleeping. So I'm like, what's the point of this? So I just had on, you know, undealt with sleep apnea for about that whole decade of my 20s. And it's just all these things. I'm like, I just want to lean down, get a good physique, still be somewhat strong, but be functional, be able to run, have good labs. Sounds like a movie, like you're a former like Navy SEAL or like Ranger and like you used to kill people all the time and now you're just trying to live in a cabin by yourself. Yeah, I just want peace. Yeah, yeah, just wants peace, but like hell comes knocking on your door again, you know.

Yeah, there you go. Like John Wick, yeah. I'm retired. I'm not doing this anymore. your door again you know there you go yeah i'm retired i'm not doing this anymore yeah did you um if you can think back like when you were younger because this is like the thing that i always think about is like young younger dudes especially when they're 18 and they already decided like oh that's it i'm gonna get on because this is what i do this is what i love it's i'm gonna go all in right uh they they cannot think about the future like they literally have no idea how to process that hey one day you might meet somebody you fall in love with and that

person's gonna want to have a kid with you fuck love yeah no fuck that i love the iron yeah i love the gym the gym loves me you know fuck bitches whatever the fuck they say these days but like for yourself though were you able to ever like stop and think like hey maybe one day you know i will put the weights down or you know the the cycles down and pick up a baby or whatever it may be because i just like i said i think it's impossible for kids to even just have the like i don't know brain power to like really consider like hey like 30 30 years old isn't like forever from now. It's actually way sooner than that. You know what I mean? Like it's going to come like that. So I

don't know for yourself, did you ever consider anything at like life at 30 years old? Long story short? No. I mean, I couldn't see that far in front of me, even though it wasn't that long. It was just like, you're living in the moment you're only focused on the next total the next meet the next goal as far as that goes everything else is secondary so you know i've been with my wife now for about eight years and there was a lot of volatility early on in those early years where we would fight all the time and you know it's just very combative with being on trend especially and that's why i always joke and she i'm like yeah my wife banned me from trying a few years ago she's like i always joke and she i'm like yeah my wife banned

me from trying a few years ago she's like i never banned you i just said i wasn't going to stick around if you kept taking it i'm like okay i'll clear it up but so god damn she literally was like okay you can take everything whatever you want just not trend because that led to so many relationship issues make you super irritable super irritable like i couldn't be around kids and stuff it was just they'd make me mad they're just it's just you get annoyed all the time you're like if it's not quiet enough and people are laughing in your defense you're walking around so carefree why are people trying to talk and you know in your defense kids maybe i'm on trend hold on in your defense kids are annoying yeah they can be a kid can be really

annoying i have more you know now that i have a daughter i'm like okay i kind of get this i get why people love kids and stuff and i'm much nicer about it but back then i was like smiling it's like i don't like kids man like what's the deal with this noise that's what i say i say i i love my kids my kids are amazing but like I don't love the neighbor kids. Other people's kids are shit. Fuck those kids. Well, exactly. I have a more softer heart and more compassion about it now,

but back then it's just that and paranoid all the time. You think you're literally, I don't care, because I've been on trend in multiple relationships. You always think they're cheating on you. Like you'll be up all night paranoid. And I've talked to many guys about that where it just plagues them. They're like, you're 100% on trend A's. You think

you're being cheated on. You're ready to fight everyone who makes eye contact with you. Because I'd be, I was a door man when I was on it the first time. I was 255 pounds. That's why all these bouncers are so pissed. No, I think, roid rage is only trend. That's why all these bouncers are so pissed. No, I think roid rage is only trend.

It's trend. There's roid rage. I talked about this with Mark's brother, Chris. People think of roid rage. I'm like, nothing gave me roid rage but trend. Trend made me freaking crazy. So many confrontations at the door.

People would ask, how many fights did you get into? I'm like, never got in fights no one wanted to fight me because i would i would try to i would go crazy before they would even want to fight like bro i'm good i don't know i'm not proud of it necessarily it's just more like this is a fact this is how it went down and um it was just it was not you know it wasn't it wasn't a good situation my boss would have other bouncers follow me around to make sure i wouldn't go crazy like stuff like that it's just it was not you know it wasn't it wasn't a good situation my boss would have other bouncers follow me around to make sure i wouldn't go crazy like stuff like that it's just it was a wild ride so the trend had to go long story short um do you think you could have done trend more responsibly is there any way it's almost like the self-control wasn't there as much on that everything else like this is where steroids get a bad rap.

It's from Trent. Okay, the other ones don't make you out of your mind and stuff. It's not, even Halo Testin, which people have said, like maybe Mike Tyson was on that when he bit off Holyfield's ear or check drops. That stuff, I was, it was all controlled. But Trent just, it's like a but trend just it's like a fog your brain's in a fog um the other thing your libido's so high you can't focus at all it's not fun you're like i kept no

attention span um it's not but it gets you strong as heck nothing gets you that level of strength so all my best numbers obviously were on it. Heightens your sense of smell for females. You're like. It's like a woman walking through the door 30 feet away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You start following.

It's just I don't know if you experienced that. But it's just there was nothing like it. I'm pretty relaxed. So nothing gets me too stirred up. Trent never got you. not in that way trend monster no but it is like it is enticing because the second that you take it you get leaner and stronger simultaneously you can see drastic differences in the way that your body looks within two weeks of taking it it's unbelievable that's crazy and the strength gains are unmatched compared to anything else I've ever tried.

I could take like four of other things, four different compounds, and it wouldn't equal what I could get on test and trend. So it's just like it was that good. But I realized, obviously, I could tell I was kind of out of control. And it just, you know, hair trigger temper and stuff. It just wasn't good. So I realized I'm like, I got to stop this. This stuff's killing me.

I think it's amazing. You had perspective to, to just discontinue everything because, and I think it's really admirable because that's what you were known for. You were known for being like hardcore in the dungeon, in the basement, washing machine, dryer behind you while you're doing your deadlifts, seemingly lifting by yourself. Um, some of these videos were put out, you know, many, many years ago before it, all that stuff was like as popular. And, um, I think it's, uh, I want to commend you on that. I think that's really like heroic in a lot of ways to, um,

turn your back on that, even though it's, it's like a small amount of fame, but it's still fame. This is what people loved you for. This is what people identified with. And I remember people making a lot of compilation videos. People got fired up and excited about this stuff. And if you watch when Pete deadlifts the weights, sometimes he jacks them up so crazy that they come flying up over, you know, where he even needs to lift it to. It's almost like he's about to do a clean with like 500 pounds.

Getting the hype at every single weight too. Serious stimulants too as far as like mega doses of caffeine coupled with clenbuterol and jacked. When you say mega dose, what do you mean? Okay, well, is that not crazy? Like looking looking back, how reckless that is on your heart. Oh, Jesus. Let's take three scoops of the original jacked 3D. Yeah.

Who knows what was in there? With the DMAA. And then let's take about 80 micrograms of clenbuterol, which is terrible for your heart. And then let's take another 200 milligram caffeine pill. Yeah, that was what I, I mean, that's, but it would get me through these five-hour marathon sessions. And I was like 21 at the time.

Five hour? Just lifting, deadlifting in rows and stuff for like five hours. But, you know, it's the thought of, you know, you're in your 20s, you're invincible. You couldn't see ahead of you. And many times, too, when I came off Trent, I was like, wow, I was such a jerk. Like, you could see it afterward, but not when you were on it. But you come off and you was like wow i was such a jerk like you could see it afterward but not when you were on it but you come off and you're like man i'm not proud of that or you're like you see that it's like the fog clears up mentally call it trend blindness

you kind of alluded to this earlier though but like what are some what are some things you may have done differently when you were in that stage. Would you have done anything differently? If I had had the foresight at the time, I would have done just test for a while. I was low dose. And then I would have maybe added an Anovar. And I would have came off. And I would have done all these things to prolong how much I would get out of them.

Because after you take steroids for a while, what happens is your body gets so adapted to them that you can run these cycles and you literally feel normal except on trend that's the one but like no but everything else you could take it and you just feel kind of baseline like it just becomes like okay this is my normal and i'm not really getting stronger anymore maybe because the receptors have been flooded for so long or whatever um and that was kind of the thing so i think you you're better off with the moderate approach, kind of gradually dialing things up, coming off like John Hack.

He's a really good example of how to get the most out of it. That's how you get your numbers even higher. Yeah. People probably have some questions that the people that are watching video wise, seeing maybe some videos of you doing some of these rows, or if they just check out any of your old videos where you're doing these rows to increase your deadlift, maybe people have some misunderstandings of what you're doing. Pause that for a second, because that's the sickest squat, some of the sickest squats I've ever seen in my life, but just pause that for a moment. When it comes to the row, you know, some people, you know, might think that you're like jerking the weights around, and it's not going to be as beneficial and things like that.

But why were you rowing that weight? Is that something you picked up from somebody else or where did it come from? I think it was kind of just a test to see how much can I row and honestly look at it. It's more of a hybrid of like a row deadlift. But I just was always trying to challenge myself with different feats. Like the 500 for 15 squat, it was like high bar, bare knee, beltless. And I just wanted to see how many times can I get 500 with no belt, no sleeves. That's wild.

And it was high bar. And I still don't know too many people who have done that under those circumstances. And it was just a challenge. You know, 405 for 25 kind of deal. Same thing on squat. These were just challenges to test myself and get better there was no structure to the training it was just i'm gonna hit it hard and i probably could have done better if there was structure but it was just the sheer aggression um i got into lifting

because i felt like a somewhat of an outcast never got bullied but i was a loner like no one paid attention to me I was just invisible and I just wanted to show people I could be something and I you know I didn't girls didn't give me any attention at the time um like I didn't I didn't kiss a girl till I was like 19 you know so there was there was I was a late bloomer with all that and it just I wanted to feel powerful and that sort of thing so that's kind of what drove me into that and then come college you know i was it felt like being big man on campus you're on trend and you're the doorman at the most popular bar in the city in a college town university of wisconsin all the football players

love you everybody loves you everyone's trying to be your best friend so it's like going from a position of being a nobody to all the power. And that was addicting. Where did the intensity come from in your lifting? Like what sparked that? Was it videos you saw of other people or like where did that come from? A little bit of that because I was kind of competing in a semi-friendly manner with Chris Hickson and George Lehman. Like we were all about the same age and we wanted to be the best. We wanted to see who could pull weights the fastest, who can pull 405 the fastest, who can lift the most,

along with just feeling like overlooked in high school, not cared about or anything. And that motivated me. That made me this crazy kind of aggression where I just was like, I had a chip on my shoulder because I felt like nobody cared about me. I mean, I felt like my parents did and everything, but I just felt ignored by all my peers. Do you still lift with aggression nowadays when you're lifting or?

Absolutely not. No. I can't. It's almost the satin sheets thing. Your life becomes too stable and things get good. And then I'm like, I don't have the passion to go crazy anymore. I couldn't, I can't call upon that if I tried. I mean, even on testosterone, even let's say I was on, I had high test levels of 2000.

I still wouldn't be able to do it. There's nothing that can replicate the hunger of when you don't have something when you're coming up. When you're fighting for something or you're at a low point or you've gone through some things, that hunger cannot be mimicked if life is good. Yeah, you've got a lot to prove, and then your deadlift might be doing pretty good and you might do a meet and your squat sucks, and then people are like, oh, well, he can't squat. Then you bump that up and you show other people, right?

But it's always kind of like almost like an internal battle that I think we sometimes don't always realize from the get-go that you're going through. But Andrew, yeah, if you can bring up that clip. So one of the reasons why this is like, I don't remember exactly how this played out, but I just remember you did a squat and you nearly died. And then you went up in weight and you nearly died again, and you nearly died and then you went up and wait and you nearly died again but you made both squats and then you went from like 633 or 639 to like 661 and i was just like that's absurd like he got killed on those first two he got completely smoked there's just no fucking possible way that he's gonna get this next lift and you killed yourself again on that one, but you made it again. And I was just like, holy shit. Yeah, resilience.

Well, I didn't bring a, because this was the first time I came out to Sacramento, I believe it was 2013. And I didn't even bring a belt. I was going to go beltless. And then Ernie Sr., he talked me into wearing a belt. Ernie Lillibridge Sr. was like, you got to wear a belt. Come on, you'll lift more.

I was like, all right, fine. So I borrowed, I think it was Ernie Jr.'s belt on those squats. And I didn't even know what low bar was at the time. We just did high bar. And I didn't know what knee sleeves were. They weren't really a thing back then. You just either did wraps or you didn't wear knee sleeves. So I didn't know about any of that. So I thought high bar and no knee sleeves was how you lift and i really preferred beltless as well but i just borrowed the belt and i uh i think i had done i don't even know in training but i just wanted to push it and i remember that squat it was crazy i just leaned into it all back and

that's how most of my squats were backyard meat of the century yeah that was the most epic meat that was and there's been a lot of big meats obviously since then but that meat felt like what put raw power lifting on the map there was nothing i can think of before that to where i mean we had urbank we had lehman we had all the lily bridges hickson um brent willis everyone forgets about him i don't even know where he's at now but that means just like that started it all it felt like Derek Kendall I don't know if he was there yeah

yeah that meet was crazy in the warm up room there was like broken plates I remember like a plate broke and shit and like there's just weights flying around it was it was wild and the reason why it was called the Backyard Meat of the Century was because people were just like talking shit about the contest that I was running. Like, oh, these are like bullshit meats.

These are like backyard meats. So I was like, there it is. We got the name of the next contest, the Backyard Meat of the Century. And then everyone just came out of the woodwork for it. I didn't really necessarily plan that, but thely bridges signed up and dan green and so forth and it just became this epic battle on the platform yeah i don't you know recall any meats that just and people look back too and they say like in that era it was just different it was before social media there was no instagram back then so it's not like anybody was necessarily lifting to get popular or famous it was more we all just loved throwing around

heavy weight whereas now it sometimes feels like it's kind of dumbed down to where it's like social media content is why people lift um and i mean there was youtube but nobody nobody was cared about power lifting to the extent they do now it wasn't as big and it just felt like a more pure time frame to where we were all just trying to throw around as heavyweight as possible. And that's what it came down to. It wasn't about growing followers and such. So that's kind of a nostalgic period to look back on. Pat Project family, we love beef on this podcast. We talk about it a lot. All right. We love our meat. But sometimes eating the same meat all the time can get a little bit boring.

That's why we partner with Good Life Proteins, which also has certified Piedmontese on their website. But sometimes you might just want to eat some chicken or fish or duck. Duck. Who eats duck? But you can eat duck. That's why if you go to goodlifeproteins.com, you can select their build-a-box options and input all the proteins you want. Then you'll select subscribe and save to save money on all of your meat. If you enter code POWERPROJECT at checkout, you can save up to 25% on your subscription. That means you're going to be saving 25% on all of that different meat that's going to be heading to your door. Once again, head to goodlifeproteins.com.

You can enter code POWERPROJECT and save up to 25%. Links are in the description box below as well as the podcast show notes. What are some things you did to like get stronger and gain weight? We know about the performance side, but was there particular ways that you ate and was there a real particular ways that you train or was it kind of just like, I'm just going to lift like a maniac and lift as heavy as I possibly can all the time. Look at that squat. Dan, Dan Green can grind too.

He's got some of the most ridiculous grinder reps I've ever seen on like on squat in particular. But, uh, yeah, I just was, um, I would eat everything.

There was no diet. I was trying to eat as much as possible. Junk food, all that pizzas. I had heartburn 24 hours a day. I was drinking. The big thing I was known for, guys, was I would get the fruit juice. I would have a half gallon of fruit juice.

He has reviews of fruit juices on his YouTube channel. I was known for it. Like the Simply Lemonades. Oh! Hey! Let's go. Separated at birth, perhaps. There we go.

Simply Lemonades, though though the blueberry and all those drink the whole thing in a day why are they so easy to take down they're delicious freaking delicious have you had the Simply Watermelon yes of course you would show everybody everything

I think that was also unique about your channels you would show everybody the snacks and stuff that you ate these are the cookies that I eat these are the cookies that I eat. And these are the snacks that I eat. Oh, it was a terrible diet. But I was just, I loved it. It was a fun time eating garbage and just getting strong and living the life. So training wasn't too structured.

Like I said, it just was kind of, we're going to go heavy on deadlift a couple days a week. And I didn't really like benching because I sucked at it. i'm gonna bench a couple times but that's it and yeah it was just the way i was pushing it i remember this one this was i think 2016 or 17 i look a little different there as you can see i'm definitely on trend all neck and back yeah i had that shaved head almost dog your neck is fucking huge there we go i got the fake washing machine and dryer in the background i still have those now too i gave you those right yeah i've got them in the back of my videos on youtube now so i saved it and everything but yeah it was just a different we've i mean look at how different we all are in this part it's like how how much have things changed in 70 years?

This is an example. And you can kind of see, like, that's the one side effect I always had with steroids was I would get acne, and you can kind of see it on my arms. Not a good thing, and I still got the scars. You know, it's not bad now, but that was one thing I always dealt with with anabolics. My skin was not forgiving. Are there any lingering effects from what you did that you know of other than the acne no the acne hasn't been a thing in years um i i took

accutane at one point a very low dose 20 milligrams for six months i got it of course you know um from like a research chemical site because i wasn't going to go to a doctor and do it so doctors prescribed like 80 milligrams of accutane. I did 20 and I did it for six months, dried out my skin, never really had acne again after that. And then it's obviously the scars have all faded a bit, but I still have some scars. Did you notice any side effects from Accutane? Yeah, it dries the heck out of your lips. Your lips will be, there's nothing you can do to get them back to normal. And this is at 20 milligrams. It will smoke your lips to the point they're just dry all the time. How about like joints and stuff?

I've heard that it could kind of like mess that up too. Yeah, at 20 milligrams, that was fine. I think when you get to the 80 milligram prescribed dose and that kind of stuff. So I did think that worked pretty well and it tasted terrible. And then, you know that but that was that was the only side effect i never got gyno was never prone to that uh and then you know nothing too serious you switched over to some running recently yes sir yeah so i've been running now for about three months and then i was running last year quite a bit um just kind of a different

challenge to complement the bodybuilding slash physique type stuff. And then you're healthier, like doing cardiovascular exercise. So my whole powerlifting career, never did cardio. Thought it was stupid. Why would I do that? Who cares about health and all that? And now I try to do it almost every day to be healthy, get better labs, get my weight down because I want to get rid of the sleep apnea, shrink a little bit, lean out. I haven't been super lean in a long time, so I'm trying to get, you know, pretty lean because that'll help. Obviously, the lighter you get, you know, the more, the heavier you are, the more burden on your body, muscle or fat. So if you get as lean as possible, you can correct a

lot of that stuff. And that's one of the things with running and it's also a different challenge like especially now with test levels of say three four hundred I'm not going to lift what I was when it was two thousand like I know this it's a different comparison so I still lift and try to do as much as I can but running offers a different challenge too where it's like I don't I have never particularly enjoyed it it's a challenge it's something I can do to push myself. And I need a challenge at all times. I need something. So I do this thing now. I'm like, I'm going to run a half marathon every month.

That's what I've been doing. I haven't even talked about this at all. But I've done two of them now. I plan to do it every month, try to get a little faster time. And it's brutal. But it's like I need that challenge. I think a lot of us are geared that way where even if it's not lifting, we need a challenge at all times of some kind,

whether it's jujitsu for you, whether it's running for you. We all have something where we need that push. And for a while, it was weights. It was hitting maxes, and now it's these other things. So it's a natural progression for people, but I think most people get lost when they don't have a challenge.

We all need a challenge of some kind, something difficult undertaking we're after at all times. And I feel like that makes us better as people, makes us better fathers, better friends, better husbands, all that. But I feel lost when I don't have a significant challenge I'm undertaking. Did you not have one for a moment? Yes. I've had a period even here when i came off of where i was kind of lost like what do i do now who am i a lot of questions deep down like who am i i'm not that big anymore i'm not anywhere near as strong what am i doing and so it's just now it's like i want to build a crazy physique i want to you know try to run a marathon again i did it when i was 15

um many years ago and I just need something new to push me while still trying to be the jacked runner, like biggest guy possible out there, the most muscle. Did you ever think that you weren't going to be able to maintain muscle when you started getting into running? And at this point, how long have you been running? So now, I mean, it's been about two and a half, three months where I've been consistently doing it almost every day. And my peak mileage like the other week was 40 miles, which is a pretty high amount. The longest runs I've done are about 13.3, just over a half marathon to secure that.

And it's complemented the lifting well because I'm doing all that. I'm definitely weaker. Don't get me wrong. It will make you weaker if you're doing extensive amounts of cardio. But when you're trying to lean out and build a nice physique and doing a lot of lateral raises, curls, stuff like that, it really helps really doing accessories. You were just doing your big powerlifting movements. But now that you're doing accessories, you've been gaining muscle in those areas that you weren't ever isolating. Yes. So my whole powerlifting career, it was all compound lifts, all squat, bench, deadlift. Maybe we'd throw in back extensions or hamstring curls, stuff like that, that I think would help my deadlift.

But I wasn't doing isolation movements. I wasn't training my arms directly, never did lateral raises. And now I've really been implementing, implementing that the last few months. And I think there's going to be a huge payoff because I'm already seeing more development in those areas. It's completely foreign muscle groups, foreign exercises. And foreign muscle groups um foreign exercises and i just want that that you know a good physique and to be healthy and you know i'm interested in like i want to maintain uh pretty decent numbers maybe let's say 325 bench minimum let's say a 600 deadlift and like a 500 squat while trying to get down lean and have a vo2 max in the 50s so that's kind of a goal i've never formally gotten it tested at like a lab we have one in knoxville i'm going to do that but just off the

garmin thing it says it's like 48 right now vo2 max and it takes a lot of work to even move that like one point so i'd like to get breaking in the 50s and that's another goal uh do you find it that it's maybe not as motivating to lift or do you like the way you're lifting now? It's not as motivating to try to like push super heavy. It's very taxing obviously, but I just like seeing the physique changes more than anything like feeding off that. And I'm still, like I said, I'm benching heavy twice a week. I'm dead lifting heavy once a week and I'm squatting heavy once a week. So that'll kick the day off. And then I roll over into the accessories. I'm deadlifting heavy once a week and I'm squatting heavy once a week. So that'll kick the day off and then I roll over into the accessories and I'm doing crazy high reps of 20, 30, 40 rep sets of push downs, curls, lateral raises, and just trying to

bring up those weak points that have never been trained. Because I just, I always had a big back and big neck and traps from powerlifting. But that was it. My quads weren't even big. I didn't do much for those. I just squatted. I didn't try to grow my physique at all. So it's just a new challenge in life. And you know, you get older, it changes. Like life changes completely. We've heard the thing every seven years, you become a new person, your interests change, you shift your mindset. I mean, we can truly right now look at where we'll be seven years from now. We have no idea. You can have an idea, but it likely won't be anything anywhere near what you think. I didn't think I'd be back into running, for instance.

I didn't think I'd be off everything. You know, I didn't think I'd have a daughter who's a year old now. So it's wild to think back like, okay, I'm 31 now. What was I doing at 24? It was a completely different life. I looked different. My interests were different. it was a completely different life i looked different my my interests were different it was everything was different so it's kind of cool to see like seven years from now we'll be we'll be completely different and that's that's the normal thing it's just you don't often

think about it in that perspective i think you like shed your former self you know in some degree especially if there's uh parts of you that you didn't like, you know, so that's probably part of what you went through from your transition to powerlifting to mess around with more bodybuilding and running. Yeah. I think, uh, everything changes. I mean, it's like, sometimes I think about what do you want out of life? Like for you guys, I mean, what would you guys say? What do you want out of life now at this stage? Cause you're different ages, you know, different points in life, but from where you were say what do you want out of life now at this stage because you're different ages you know different points in life but from where you were say a decade ago to now how has that changed what do you guys think i think for me there's been a constant theme of just i would like to continue to improve you know improve as a husband improve as a friend and improve as someone to communicate with people.

So that has kind of always been there, whether it's, you know, me putting my focus into lifting and trying to lift more or trying to run further and run faster. I get a lot out of improvement. It's like something that keeps me motivated, keeps me going, keeps me fired up. And then obviously, you know, having children and things like that, like the legacy part of any of that is just to pass things on to them that can help them become good people, hopefully great people, but also really assist them to hopefully, if they wish to, for them to be great parents, because I think that really moves the needle. So I think about the people that they're going to impact, almost like the way you might think about people that listen

to this show or people that follow you on Instagram, like you're hoping that you have a good positive impact. But I think it's to a much different degree when you're impacting the people that are inside your home. Yeah, it's a big question. But in general, like the whole, I think, essence of this podcast is like we're selfish in the way that we want to improve we bring people on that we can learn things from that you know it helps everyone who's listening but it also helps us with the things that we're trying to improve out in our lives so it's like constant improvement i'm someone who uh i like peace bro like so there's there's no one in my life that like there's drama or whatever like peace is just a constant thing that I'm just like if there's not peace, like there's problems.

You know what I mean? So constant improvement of the things I enjoy, physical, mental, consistent peace, helping the people in my life. And in the future, like as I continue on jujitsu, I want to be able to teach jujitsu. Specifically, I want to be able to teach jujitsu to kids. I don't even want to do it for money. It's just something I enjoy. You know what I mean? I enjoy it so much, and I've seen the impact it's had on me physically and mentally.

And it's something that I wish I had when I was a kid. I mean, I played a lot of sports, which definitely helped me out. But just what I've been able to learn from this in the past few years, I think it can be so powerful for youth. So I want to do that at some point. But yeah, that's like if we're going to try to cement that in. point but uh yeah that's that's like if we're gonna try to cement that in that's some of that yeah i think peace makes a lot of sense because you go to you fight every day right so you're trying to have like a a good uh very variation between the two right like if i

fight every day then and make things difficult then things will be easier i'll be able to defend myself defend things off of me a little easier how How about for you, Andrew? Yeah. And real quick, I mean, you've also experienced what it's like to not have peace also. And I know I have the same thing. So like, I would say not necessarily 10 years ago, a little bit further than that. Like I'd go to bed and wouldn't care if I was going to wake up or not because I didn't have really anything and I wasn't working towards anything. It was, when can I get another drink? When's like the next day off and like when's the next paycheck? When's Call of Duty, you know, going to start up again?

You know, whatever it may be. And like there was just nothing I was working towards versus now. You know, I have my son. I have my daughter. We have this. Like there's so many things that like I've been working on and I've seen some success. And then, you know, having my son, like I do so much with him on my mind, you know, like he was like the last straw for me to get into jujitsu. So like, you know, because I want him to do it.

So like there's things like that where it's like now I have a goal. You know, I have my first competition coming up. Like I'm working towards things. Whereas before, like I said, said dude like i just didn't without sounding too mean and obviously i had family like family was awesome but like i was kind of a piece of shit you know like i would look at that person and be like yeah like nobody's gonna strive to be that versus now like yeah we got a lot of stuff cool stuff going on and things are finally going in a good direction yeah i think that makes a lot of stuff cool stuff going on and things are finally going in a good direction

yeah i think that makes a lot of sense i mean just like we talked about earlier where you need some kind of goal at all times i truly feel like everyone needs some tangible goal they're after where they can push towards that because it does somewhat give your life meaning to where you don't feel that emptiness as much the most depressed I've been is when I'm in limbo and I don't know what I'm going after. So that's a big thing. Obviously, kids help with giving your life a little more meaning. That's been a big change for me where it's given me more, again, a sense of purpose.

But we've got to have a goal. And I've been listening actually a lot to Andrew Huberman talk about dopamine. Everybody knows Andrew Huberman. And he talks about the dopamine thing where you accomplish a goal or you get done with something. And then there's a big dopamine drop where you're almost in a state of somewhat depression for maybe a few weeks upwards of, and that's pretty normal. But I think it's just one of those things where again, with dopamine, like I'm trying to expend less of it. Now I'm trying to be more cautious of what I'm, what I'm using my dopamine on on a daily basis.

So a lot of times I would frivolously be like looking through my phone at stupid stuff like sports. And I would check it like 100 times a day. And I'm like, why am I doing this? And I'm just wasting it all. And I would stop doing that, be more cautious of it. And my productivity would go up. My focus, I'd be so much happier. I felt better. And so a lot of people, their problem with that would be like Instagram focus i'd be so much happier i felt better and it's

so a lot of people their problem with that would be like instagram they'd be scrolling through instagram all day checking it a hundred times for me it was like sports and just cutting that out made like a world of difference and allowed me to focus on my goals and hone in even more that is a huge game changer yeah it's like uh suckling you know, you just want that dopamine and you like going on a run or lifting, you know, do you need to take Kratom? Do you need a pre-workout? Do you need caffeine for it? Sometimes maybe it's appropriate to do that,

but what about just giving yourself a little bit of time? Just start to lift for like 10 minutes. And if at 10 minutes you still feel like dog shit and you want to reach for your energy drink, then maybe you do it. But give yourself a chance first because I think once you get going, once you get started, the dopamine will start to release. And then you'll want to push through the workout further. Andrew and I were watching a clip a couple days ago about courage. And the guy asked a question.

It's in a movie. The guy asked a question. He's like, how come I don't have the courage to do something before it happens? He's like, it doesn't work that way. You get the courage after it happens. So, you know, someone, if you were like, hey, man, would you fight someone in the street? A lot of people would be like, no, man, no, no. Like, that's not me.

No, I would be kind of nervous. Or would you go in front of everybody and give everybody a speech? You know, no way. If all of a sudden you kind of had to, you know, no way. If, if all of a sudden you kind of had to, you know, you would, you would probably find a way to figure it out. Maybe it wouldn't be great, but you would probably figure out something that would, uh, uh, that, that you maybe thought previously that you would never be able to do. Power Project family, your normal shoes are making you weak. This is why I partner with Vivo Barefoot Shoes because they have a wide toe box, they're

flat, and they're flexible. So with every single step you're taking, if you're taking a 10-minute walk outside or when you're working out in the gym, your feet are able to do what they're supposed to do in this shoe. They have tons of options for hiking, running, training in the gym, chilling and relaxing, casual shoes. If you're out on a date, you need to check them out. And Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over over at vivo barefoot.com slash power project and you guys will receive 15 off your order automatically again vivo barefoot.com slash power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes yeah that makes a lot of sense because that's another thing huberman has talked about where everything starts with action

he's like motivation doesn't just happen first. You have to initiate the action. Everything else will fall into place. And he said that's one thing Goggins has done a lot of in his life where he will simply just do something and then the rest of it comes later on. Like the motivation, the push, you just have to – he's wired in a way where when he sees something difficult, he's just going to attack it. And if more of us adopted that approach where we lean into the difficult things and just simply went after them right off the bat, we'd be more successful. So that's another tactic where I'm trying to employ that, just be like, just do it.

Just start doing it, and the rest will fall into place. And then it kind of builds on itself to where you have these successes, and they rack up, and then you have that momentum, and that pushes you towards a goal. Because they talked about how you get, how seals get through hell week. They kind of chunk it down. They go, okay,

we just got to make it to the next meal. So hell week being five and a half days, they sleep about two, two to four hours total. The guys who make it, he said, are the guys who are like breaking it down into six hour increments. Cause you have to get a meal.

They have to feed you every six hours. So the guys who go, I just got to make it to the next meal. And then they get done with that one. I just got to make it to the next meal. And then they get done with that one. I just got to make it to the next one. And they stack that up. Same as like an ultra marathon runner in a hundred mile race. You go, I just got to make it to the next aid station.

And you get to 20 and then you get to 28 or whatever. You just keep stacking it up. That's how you get through something that difficult. So that was kind of a cool thing that I was like, it makes perfect sense. But yeah, I think too, the cutting out, you know, things that inundate you with massive amounts of dopamine is big. He said like cocaine gives you 10 times more dopamine hit than the normal. Working out is one and a half times. Like sex is two times.

And like even honestly with pornography, I haven't watched it in four years. Cut it out four years ago completely. Amen. Why? I think it wasn't even like super controlling over my life. Obviously, I would watch it, but I wanted to stabilize my relationship more. You know, it was something obviously my wife didn't want me watching it. And I felt like it aligned too with like my religious beliefs to not watch it.

Like being a Christian, It's like I can't be doing this. And it's not to say you're not going to sin like I cuss and stuff too but you try to align yourself in a more a better lifestyle to where you're an example of that. Because here's the thing with religion whether or not someone's religious or not if you're going around saying I'm a Christian but you're

setting a poor example that makes you look like a phony. It's the same. So I can't give off. If you want to be a poor example that makes you look like a phony it's the same so i can't give off if you want to be a good example for others or bring them to christ or whatever you have to live relatively pure you have to do the best you can so you're still going to sin but that's that's there's no validity to religion when someone is making a mockery of it who's telling others to get into it yeah that looks ridiculous so if i'm like making all these bad choices and and setting a bad example who am i to be like yeah

you need to get into the christian lifestyle like that's ridiculous so it's just um it's hypocritical in a sense for one and i just felt like i would be able to focus better too by cutting that out i feel like that's one of those things that pornography makes you scatterbrained and you're getting these dopamine hits and you're always like the temptations right at your fingertips, literally. So yeah, it's just,

it's these things you got to cut out and just, they will make you better. You'll be more productive. You'll be more efficient. You'll be a better person. Yeah. And so that was just mainly the thing there. There were,

there were numerous reasons, but held strong with it. has to be uh you know like so like flavorful and it doesn't have to like there's there's a lot of things in the day that aren't that way just like taking out the garbage there's a lot of like things to do around the house there's a lot of shit that you need to do that i mean imagine if you were thinking about like taking out the garbage and you were like i need my pre-workout my dry scoop my pre-workout and then take the garbage out and taking the garbage out is something that's you know you're like oh this kind of sucks to take the garbage out. And taking the garbage out is something that's, you know, you're like, oh, this kind of sucks. You take the garbage, you know, put the garbage in the bin and take it out to the street or whatever.

But like once you put it on the street and as you're walking back, you kind of feel good about it. It could be the smallest fucking task. It could be that you're cleaning out your closet or you're cleaning out your garage or just any of these things. I think that we sometimes think that things need to be like more glamorous or they need to be, you know, again, you get super attached to the phone because there seems to be so much going on there. But anyone who's tried this before, if you have any absence from your phone, if you do some fasting away from your phone, what did you miss? You missed fucking nothing. You never really miss anything. Have you noticed that?

Like if you just had a couple days where you're really low in terms of how much you're watching on your phone, you don't feel like you miss. And even if you miss something, somebody else is going to just send it to you anyway. No one cares about you. No one's going to message you.

Don't worry about it. I feel notably better. Yeah, no, it's... I feel like if I do a fast for my phone, I feel notably like better, more clear. Mental clarity goes way up. Productivity goes way up. You feel less depressed. You feel, not to say you're depressed all day, but you feel almost just a euphoria of

like, I don't know, it sounds so crazy, but I've tried this. I'm content knowing that you have what you need. I think you try to go to the phone for other shit that you think that you need that you probably don't need. And I think it ties into what we talked about with the dopamine thing. You're getting these constant little dopamine hits that mess with you. It takes away from actually getting that from things that you actually have to put work into. So if you get a dopamine hit from running, from you kind of earn that you know but if you're just getting it from checking your phone and getting like seeing something or seeing likes that's not really you're not doing anything for that it's not deserved and the funny thing that

everyone can relate to is like there's a period of time especially when you use your phone a lot that you notice like when you go to your phone you pick it up your fingers automatically go to that place but automatically go towards instagram or youtube and you're like i wasn't even trying to do that i wasn't your body conscious exactly but when you do start to fast away from it when you do start to try to actually use it less there's going to be one day where you open it up and then you scroll you're like wait why am i doing this and then you put it down right and then you scroll and you're like, wait, why am I doing this? And then you put it down, right? And then it just, that becomes the norm where you start to be more present and aware of what you're doing rather than moving on autopilot and wasting your time.

Well, a lot of life is spent on autopilot by many people. And we get into that point where you realize every day is passing you by. You're like, okay, my daughter's only going to be this old once. It's going to go by like that. So trying to be more present in the moment, that's one of the huge things I've tried to do more of to where I'm like, this moment in time is going to be gone. We're only, we're only getting closer to death every day. We have to realize that, but being aware of that, we can maximize what we're doing. So that's another thing that I really try to employ more. And I'm not perfect about any of this. I backslide too, just like anybody else.

But it's little things you can think about. Most people are just walking through life, spending their life on autopilot. They don't have challenges, no goals. They're lost. They feel depressed. They don't know what they're doing. And it's these things you have to be aware of.

The more aware you are of everything, the better you can fight it. So that's another thing like with running. I can listen to audiobooks on the treadmill yeah that's been a huge thing for me to learn more um that's another reason i like it i feel like i'm learning i'm getting smarter and reading is huge reading is huge as far as taking things up to the next level in your life some people would say running on a treadmill is cheating but that didn't come from me in fairness all of my long runs have been outside. When I do the half marathons, they're on a trail.

A treadmill is actually dope because the incline is fucking real. The incline is the way to go. If you mess with the incline, then you get a pass to go on the treadmill. Yeah, you can set the incline to like five or six, and it's no joke if you're doing a sustained run like that. But it's just another challenge, just like anything. I think something people should try to be thoughtful of, and I need to do a better job myself, is just think about the things that you reach for

and the things that you go for. How do they make you feel? So when you go on Instagram, typically, how does it make you feel? Make you feel. You can feel whatever way you want because you can interpret it whatever way you want. But I think quite frankly, I think a lot of times, at least I'll speak for myself, I can be negative. I could look at stuff and be like, nah, nah, nah.

I'm like negative Nilly on a lot of stuff. I'm not really searching for anything nice. I'm not searching for anything super productive. not searching for anything super productive. However, if I'm on a run, I'm going to choose a YouTube video or maybe an audio book or a song that I feel is going to be like a double whammy in terms of my production with my run. It's going to help me maybe to run a little faster or to keep a particular pace and or I'm going to learn something. Like you're mentioning running and listening to something at the same time. I mean, you could end up with a lot of positives there. You're outside,

you're listening to an audio book, you're learning something, you're getting exercise in, as opposed to if you just, you know, go to this and you start looking at stuff and maybe someone's feeling bad about like where they are in their life, or maybe they feel lost because this 25 year old person is in a better spot than them. There's many different things that you can fall victim to when you're on social media platforms like that. Yeah, absolutely. The comparison game is huge. It's been talked about a lot. Do you guys ever struggle with that in any sense? could be with anything whether it's financially or the weights you're lifting anything and that might not be super applicable to you you guys but

are is there any times in your life where you struggle with you see stuff on social media and you go man like without even consciously realizing you just kind of feel a little worse off yeah i would say i have to admit yeah like i do um do. And I think that, like, that's my initial reaction. I don't know why. I don't know if that's unique to me or if everybody does it. But for me, my initial reaction is to, like, be mad or, like, kind of pissed that someone else is doing this. And I'm like, wait a second, why the hell do you even care?

They're not taking anything away from you. That's good for them. And I'll hit the little like button. And why the hell do you even care? They're not taking anything away from you. That's good for them. And I'll hit the little like button. Or I'll say just something like silly or funny to try to mess with somebody.

But yeah, my initial reactions aren't – they're not great and I still need to work on them. Superhuman. That's a very human thing. Like it's like the initial knee jerk sometimes is to be like, fuck, why aren't I doing that? Or why haven't I done that yet? Or why haven't I been able to get that yet? Right. But we talked about it a lot. Like when you start shifting your mind to just like be happy for people and just be pumped for people and be like, well, that's fucking awesome how they're doing that. How, how could I kind of do that? Or how could I replicate that somehow? It shifts it a lot. It'll get you out of that. But, but if you don't take the second

to shift your mindset, like he just mentioned, you can definitely be caught in just that negative warp zone of scrolling and being pissed. That's right. You know? Absolutely. It happened recently, and I talked about it on air too. And especially it's like you're not supposed to do this in pretty much anything, especially in jiu-jitsu. But I was going through a slump where one week I'm like, dude, I'm trying to do X in pretty much anything especially in jujitsu but like i was going through

like a slump or one week i'm like dude like i'm trying to do x y and z but like i end up doing none of them and then i'm getting smoked by other people that i've been able to kind of like it doesn't matter if i win or lose but like when somebody who i feel like i should be able to like regain my guard with they're getting right past me i'm like dude something's wrong here like so like you know market and sema both are like well why are you even comparing yourself like that and i'm like ah you know you're right so that's that's where i you know i'm working on it still and i'm and thankfully going through this now you know like throwing it right in my face i'm like no i'm not comparing and it's like you know you are like ah fuck all right yeah

you're right so yeah that's that's where it's hit me recently. Let me ask you this, Pete, actually. Why have you chosen not to do TRT? Because you mentioned your test is like at 300, 400, right? So there's probably a lot of people like, just do TRT. Why have you not? I think the main thing is I spent so long and I felt like I got on steroids before I needed to. Where I was like, I didn't need to play that card when I did. I was still progressing.

I was doing fine where I almost wanted the challenge of being off because I never felt like I truly got that challenge because there's, I got on it so early that I was like, did I ever push myself to the point I could have and see my natural abilities? And that was it initially. And then I think I got to a point where you check your testosterone levels a dozen times over two years and they're never above four. And you like okay it's not going to get back to that high where maybe it's not even potentially possible to push things that that heavy and i just felt good you know being off i feel good i don't feel my libido is not low it's not crazy high either but it's good it's normal i feel good on a daily basis i have good energy i sleep well i i haven't felt like I needed it. I

didn't feel like my quality of life was suffering at all. So that's a big part of it. And then just knowing that I can play that card if I want to later on. I have a good doctor who's literally two minutes from our gym and I can go down the street and get, you know, I'd probably say I just want a hundred a week just to start out. And that card is always there. So it hasn't been a big rush for me because I view all of this as an experiment as well. I'm constantly experimenting with my body to see how I can manipulate biomarkers or variables, what supplements I can take maybe that will shift some things around. I've experimented with tonkatali, fadoja, all that kind of stuff, boron. So I just like

experimenting with my body now. I like seeing what can we get things to, what can I do with it. And that's more of the draw for me now than anything. So I'm not opposed to TRT, and I'm neutral with it. It's something that I would do maybe later on, but I don't see the rush. How about the—wrong camera. Because Huberman said testosterone, it helps kind of makes things like difficult more enjoyable. Or I forgot how he worded it. Makes effort feel good.

Makes effort feel good. So have you noticed anything like that where it's like you kind of don't have the pep in your step to go do something difficult? I don't think I've had too much of that. But at the same time, I mean, it's hard to say. Like when my test levels were higher, it just became, I got so used to it, I don't know how much it was helping either. It felt like things were so baseline, even on cycle for a while, because I'd been on it so long. So it's not something I necessarily struggle with, but. Your workouts used to be so hard and they went on forever too, right?

but uh your workouts used to be so hard and they went on forever too right so uh no matter how much testosterone on maybe you weren't that pumped to go and deadlift i mean you were excited to go and test yourself but at the same time you're like fuck man i'm in for it today yeah you knew it was gonna kill you you knew it was gonna be a tough session every every session was i'm gonna kill my cns basically it probably doesn't feel that same way with a run or a pump session right no i we've talked about this. I get sick of like walking around like when I was on all that and doing those crazy max out sessions to where you constantly have nervous system fatigue

and you feel run down and you can't get anything done. Your brain's foggy. And I just got sick of that feeling. And now it's kind of nice where I still go somewhat heavy, but I'm not having i don't feel like like crap all the time more or less yeah so and trt probably would enhance some things but i'm also i'm a little worried about as i try to kind of lean out and get low and get lighter i feel like it would put a little weight on me which would potentially um so that's another thing where

i'm kind of trying to slim down for sleep apnea purposes. And I don't know if that would, it's a toss up, but everything's an experiment. So the sleep apnea thing seems very interesting because like, you know, there's so many things that will have an impact on someone's testosterone. But if you have sleep apnea, if you manage to fix that and your sleep quality increases well it helps recovery it helps everything else that might be one big thing that could move you in the right direction have you had any success with anything you've been doing for sleep apnea honestly just getting lighter just getting like when i came off it was way better my wife used to say you snored

really badly all the time like terribly and she's like since you've come off i don't hear your snore okay so i i think obviously that's not 100 accurate metric but snoring does play a role if you snore you're probably much more likely to have sleep apnea and if you don't it's it's probably better that's not to say you still can't have it but it's better um one other thing too like i think i just want to see if i no matter how long it takes can i get my testosterone levels back to like 500 like that would be so cool for me. If I could just get them over five, I'd be ecstatic.

So if that took three years, I'd do it. I just want to see. I want to see how long will it take to rebound. Because I keep thinking, I check it every couple months. I'm like, is it going to be higher now? And it really hasn't been. It kind of goes back and forth. But I'm wondering if at some point I'll have kind of a breakthrough and then it'll just kind of be bumped up a little bit we also

have no idea where it was before you ever started right pretty much there's there's not data back then it wasn't a thing and blood work wasn't popularized like it is now so i love it now i get it checked you know pretty consistently and i look into these other markers like lipoprotein little a, which a lot of people don't know about. Doctors don't check it because half the thing with why doctors don't check some of these is insurance comes to them and goes, why are you checking this? We don't need this done. Follow the protocol.

So some of these more lesser known biomarkers like C-reactive protein, lipoprotein little a, insulin, they don't check them when they're very important because it's not in the normal protocol they're taught. Lipoprotein little a is part of a cholesterol panel, correct? It's a separate thing. So if you got like a lipid panel, it wouldn't even be on there. Oh, right, right.

You'd have to get it checked on your own individually. It's like a separate biomarker. It's been kind of linked to early cause of heart attacks. It leads to a higher chance of thrombosis. So clotting, stenosis, narrowing of the arteries, and then also atherosclerosis. So all of that goes up significantly if you have lipoprotein little a elevated. It should be under like 75. Mine was 262. It's entirely genetic. So they have shown like exercise doesn't lower it. Diet doesn't lower it. Nothing they've really found lowers it. And it's entirely genetic. So they have shown like exercise doesn't lower it. Diet doesn't lower it.

Nothing they've really found lowers it, and it's so new. There's like PCSK9 inhibitors lower at 30%. But this is something everyone should check once, see if you're in that danger zone, and if you are, maybe look into some other things. So I've just become fascinated by this stuff and trying to make my body healthier. If that is the case, if it's high, you may want to subscribe to particular diets. Maybe you do cut back a little bit on saturated fats and things like that, right? Is that anything that you tried to do to make sure it doesn't go higher? Yeah, I think the biggest thing that it's made me realize, and I've dug

into a lot of research on it, where a lot of the studies and such if you have a very high level the main way you combat that is you can't necessarily lower it but what you could do is you could prevent oxidation and inflammation in the body so that the lipoprotein that was present in you wasn't causing damage it wasn't becoming oxidized and you know inflammation it wasn't yeah jamming up in the arteries hardened and stuff yeah so if it's present and you keep inflammation levels low and you prevent oxidation, you can somewhat neutralize it to where it's not causing the damage, even if it's present. And that's kind of the route I'm going, where if I get as healthy as possible, I can keep inflammation low, systemic inflammation, and I can prevent all that

oxidation that's going to cause the damage. And that's why I think like doing all the cardio and trying to be healthy is the way to go. So that's why I'm big into that now. You have your clients, like, cause when you were talking to the gym, you were talking a lot about blood work. Do you have a lot of your clients or most of your clients try to get blood work done? I do. I've had a lot of them send me stuff and usually it's pretty normal stuff. Like for the majority of the population, you're not going to see like crazy outlier numbers with blood work. It's not. Most people who are, let's say, natural or even on TRT are going to have very normal numbers unless they're doing something crazy.

But every once in a while, you'll see something where you're like, yeah, you got to look into that. You know, something I'll see a lot of now, I'll see a little bit of hypothyroidism, very common, higher TSH level. Now I'll see a little bit of hypothyroidism, very common, higher TSH level, or I'll see, honestly, a lot or I see a lot of lower testosterone levels in natural guys to where I think there's environmental factors at play that cause lower testosterone now than what we maybe saw 20 years ago. So I see a lot of guys in the three, 400 range where you think, okay, they're perfectly healthy. They're a young guy in their twenties. They should be maybe 6, 650.

And you'll see them down to 300, 400 all the time I see it. And I think a lot of that is just maybe even the tap water. Maybe I use a water filter at home. Maybe in the food, the processed foods, the chemicals, all this stuff I think plays a role to why, as a whole, testosterone levels are indeed lower now. I've seen it anecdotally from all the labs i've looked at like it's a thing people are not what they used to be as far as the

levels it's it's definitely lower i sleep's got to be in there because 100 people just being so attached to their phone you know i think uh maybe people used to be disrupted a little bit if they had a tv in their room but you could just be kind of disinterested in the show and turn over and go to bed. And it's not a huge deal. But I don't know, the phone, you can kind of find your own thing on there, you know, and you can spend too much time on it. I think a lot of people are doing that. And that ties in. Yeah, exactly.

Like looking at your phone all the time. Everyone tends to scroll through Instagram or TikTok or whatever before bed. It's completely common. You know, that could be a problem. And for me, like I wake up 4.30 AM on weekdays, my sleep quality is not great. I have a one-year-old. All these things, they do factor and that could be playing a huge role in the testosterone levels not bouncing back. But I'm big into this stuff now. Like, kind of like you guys, I'm always looking for little, you know, hacks to improve my lifestyle, improve my physique, improve my body, health, all that. So it's fascinating to

me. That's kind of the rabbit hole I'm going down now where I'm trying to learn all the things similar to y'all. And it's been fun. Do you know what your testosterone levels are at? How about your estrogen? How about your prolactin? How about your cholesterol? If the answer is, I don't know what they're at. Well, we've been talking about blood work for a long time now. That's why we've partnered with Merrick Health, a company owned by Derek from More Plates, More Dates. Now with Merrick, you can get yourself something called the Power Project Panel, which will give you 26 different labs that will help you understand what's going on underneath the hood. After that, you'll be able to be partnered with one of their patient care coordinators, which will give you interventions that range from

lifestyle supplements to potential hormonal health treatments that can help move you in the right direction. But it all starts with knowing on what's going on down here. So get your blood work done. And Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, we have two options for you guys. Head over to merikhealth.com slash powerproject.

That's M-A-R-E-K health.com slash powerproject. There you guys will see the Power Project panel that Nsema was just talking about. And at checkout, enter promo code power project to save $101 off of that panel. Now, if you want to custom select your own panel, you guys can use promo code power project 10 to save 10% off all labs. Again, that's at merrickhealth.com slash power project. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. What else are you tracking besides your blood? Because it looks like you got a smartwatch on there.

Yeah, I got a Garmin here. So this tracks obviously sleep. It tracks heart rate. Resting heart rate's a thing I try to lower all the time. So the more cardiovascularly fit you get, technically your resting heart rate will go down. And I want to say when I started the running a couple months ago, it was 52. Nice. So now it's 44.

So your resting heart rate is 44, especially for a guy your size. Yeah, and that's mainly taken into account. You've got to realize when you're, like, sleeping, so it's, like, very low. But, like, Nick Bear, he's 35. And you want to get that as low as you can. It gets your blood pressure down. I've had high blood pressure, like, my whole life. I don't have good genetics.

I have high lipoprotein little a i'm had heart attacks in the family high blood pressure diabetes all that stuff it all runs in my family which i think is similar to you and it's like so i'm trying to combat this stuff as best i can you know i i dug my heels in did all the steroids and stuff and now i'm kind of trying to go the opposite route where i'm trying to be as healthy as possible looked apart all that sort of stuff and let's say like another interesting thing is with like, people always thought LDL is the culprit for heart attacks and that. Well, a lot of the new research, it's triglycerides. If your triglycerides are very high, that's a pretty accurate marker that you're insulin resistant. So you actually want to get the triglycerides much lower.

Like look into the statin research. If you dig into the statin research, the all-cause mortality does not lower at all. When people take statins, it doesn't lower their cause of death at all, their chances of death. But statins lower triglycerides a bit, which is why they might have some merit in that regard. But triglycerides are what you want to get down.

Same with fasted insulin level. If you want a fasted insulin level below like five, you want it as low as possible because the lower you get that, the more insulin sensitive you are, which insulin sensitivity is going to help you avoid heart attacks and all that sort of stuff, diabetes. So these are kind of the things I'm just like, I love reading about and studying. So what are you personally doing through nutrition now? It's just beef and rice every day, do some eggs and then i do still throw some things in at the end of the day and that's why i'm like okay running i can somewhat justify my diet of having some things but it's not what it used to be it's not like

entirely trash and processed foods all i drink is water um but every day beef and rice are the staples and then i'll kind of mix in some other things. I don't eat a ton actually. I'm not like eating a lot. I did play around with fasting for a while. Did a four day fast. That was my max, 96 hours. And then I've done a lot of 48 hour fasts just to challenge myself, lose a little weight. You know, there's the cell autophagy where it kills off bad cells, regrows new cells. So healthier cells it's good for that so i've played around with fasting as well but it's tough it's mentally challenging are you still crushing pizzas everyone i probably have a pizza once every 10 to 14 days so not very often but like the diet's cleaner guys yeah there is still some of that. It's a lot less though.

Yeah, we got to get some favorites though because I know you have a lot of frozen pizzas and stuff. Oh, yeah. I got one. Frozen from Walmart. It's at Walmart. So you should be able to get it. Everyone has access. Yeah.

Motor City Pizza Company, the five cheese bread pizza. That is the bomb. The five cheese bread. Motor City Pizza Company. because in detroit they make pizzas in like a square pan like an oil pan so it's they used an oil pan and so it's like a square pizza the five cheese bread one is the bomb that one's up there i do like chips and queso sometimes that's it right there that is the best pizza. Wait, pull this motherfucker. This looks... Yo. I much prefer... It's made me so hungry.

Frozen pizza. It's so good. It's unbelievable flavor. Why do you prefer frozen pizza? I just like it more. I've always liked it more than takeout pizza. I know it's weird. Well, it gets to...

I see some of the pros because it gets to stay pretty hot. By the time it gets delivered to you, it cools down a little bit. You could eat there. it's really hot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to go to the place. Ten out of ten.

Man, this looks really good. So the crust is stuffed with cheese too? No, it's just kind of this, it's not stuffed or anything, but it's just, I can't even describe how good it is. There's so much flavor because you got all these different cheeses. Here in Sacramento, we got Chicago Fire. Have you guys ever been there? No. I think I've gone to DoorDash once.

Yeah, Chicago Fire is pretty amazing. And then they have like a stuffed meat pizza. Oh! They'll tell you, they're like, that's going to be 35 minutes. You're like, I don't give a fuck how long it takes. Just get me the pizza. You're like, I'm in. It's the most ridiculous thing.

I was going to try to DoorDash it. If you eat one of those, it'll just clog everything up. You'll die right there on the spot. My mouth is so wet. I'm so hungry right now, dog. Got to stuff something in there. You know, you introduced me too many years ago to Pazookies, and those are the bomb. Oh, yeah.

I can love Pazookies. And we can't get them in Tennessee. I have to go to Nashville for that. Oh, yeah. Pazookies. Where do we go to? BJ's, right? to go to Nashville for that. Oh, yeah, Pazookies. Where do we go to? BJ's, right? BJ's.

BJ's Brewhouse. BJ's makes good pizza, too. Yeah, they have a really good deep dish. Pazookie. The cookies and cream Pazookie. That one is really good. The confetti cake, too. They just have a new one.

Confetti cake. PJ's? Oh, it's freaking awesome. Never had it. Just released. Yeah, you got to go get released. What was your favorite juice? Did you say blueberry? Blueberry lemonade was up there.

I tried all the juices, guys. I love some juice, but I think the blueberry lemonade was number one. How do you feel about Welch's? It's alright. Simply was my go-to. I'm not a big grape guy. No, the grape kind of burns your throat it's very sweet yeah yeah very sweet overly sweet cherry juice too straight

up cherry juice from like wisconsin delicious that stuff's phenomenal yeah that's a mango lemonade look i don't know who is this guy like you know what i'm saying like what in the heck is going on here i look at this and i'm like was that me this brand pineapple juice though is really fucking good i know that joe's that's trader joe's yep oh there's can you even grow a beard anymore i i when it starts getting itchy i'm just like i'm done this is the longest it gets i don't i don't deal with the itching like that that's ridiculous um but yeah that's it's so weird to look at myself there, and I just feel and look different.

So much food on the counter. You're just like, got everything close by, within hand's reach, so you can stay big. Yeah, that was Mambo Italiano screaming Sicilian. You might be changing a lot of people over to frozen pizza. Frozen pizza is really, I just would demolish this stuff all the time but i used to be a fan of red baron frozen pizza they're good red bear is really good yeah that's

okay yeah damn now i want pizza next man it's been a minute it's like the day is going to the arnold yeah we're fucked we're ordering pizza pizza's pizza's been talked about too much now do you guys still go to the arnold did you go this year we didn't go this year but we i've gone for many many years in a row but it's not what it used to be no no you got still the cage is gone all that stuff like the animal cage all that's gone yeah they're done they haven't done it and covid kind of shut it down you've had opportunities to lift in there before how was that it was amazing did it five times. But Animal now, they dropped all their power lifters,

I think, for the most part, except for Dan and Andrew Herbert. But it was a crazy experience. There's more people at the cage than there were at meets. Yeah. Like, you'd be surrounded as far as you could see people watching you. So that was kind of cool.

You know, being in the primetime spot, one year I got in the prime spot, trying 900. And that was kind of cool um you know being in the prime time spot to one year i got in like the prime spot trying 900 and uh that was pretty fun like the saturday at like 1 p.m like you're like the main the main attraction at that at that point so that was awesome a lot of good times there you know powerlifting has taken me all over the world it's been fun like i look back and i'm like i've gotten to go to places I never would have gotten to go. Tonin-les-Bains, France, which is the French Alps right by Geneva, Switzerland. Went there twice.

Wow. Got flown out there. Went to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, you know, Portland, Oregon even. Like that was so cool. Hawaii. This place is like I never, it opened so many doors to meet people coming out here. This was really the first major trip. I think the first flight I ever took was out to Sacramento in 2013, I believe. And that was the first time I flew.

All these doors that open, all the people I met, all the experiences, that's priceless. So I look back on that, and it's been incredible. I've gotten to see a lot of cool places. Going up to Lake Tahoe yesterday, that was amazing. Never seen that before. Like, it's just, it's so cool. Who's the biggest freak you've ever seen, powerlifting-wise? You can name off a few if you need to.

Biggest freak. Just like mutant, like no one, you don't understand how they're that strong. I think, in a way, actually I got to give, you know, pay homage to Chris Hickson because even though there were a lot of guys stronger, the sheer speed in which he could deadlift was another level I've never seen. He was so fast with anything below like 675 that it was just stupid. Like I couldn't make sense of it. He could pull 585 like a 225 warm-up.

And that level of speed was just, I've never seen that before. So that stands out. Dan Green, he was pretty freaky. Like some of his peak lifts were just insane. The number, and he was massive. The muscle size he was able to build was nuts. He's massive. His legs are ridiculous.

He's up there. I'm not as familiar with the newer crowd now. I haven't been around these guys. I'm kind of out of the sport as far as that goes. You know, washed up meathead now, but just back in the day, those guys were kind of a different breed, it felt like. Yeah, Chris Hickson wasn't all that big.

No. He was pretty thin. Well, the thing was, he was like still 260 because he was about 6'3". He's tall. He's 6'3". Here, he was like still 260 because he was about 6'3". He's tall. He's 6'3". Here, he's not maybe 260 yet, but these were kind of, this is when he started taking Super Draw.

He got an M-Draw, which you could order off Amazon, and he would get bloody noses every single time he lived from the blood pressure of Super Draw. And this is when I was like, oh, screw this. I'm getting on steroids. It's like, this guy's blowing me out of the water all of a sudden. What did you say it's called? Amdrol? Like, what's the deal with that?

So it was a Superdrol clone called Amdrol. And it was. Amazon? Yeah, you get it off Amazon. Right now? No, no. They banned it many years ago. For a couple of years, though, you could get it.

And it was more powerful than like Anadrol. You could get it off Amazon. He was one of the original hook grippers. He was like the main guy he's before kaylor everyone thinks of kaylor yeah hickson was the first guy to kind of do it yeah he had those big hands he tried to show me how to do it my hands don't look anything like that he had like huge hands yeah they were dwarfed of mine but he uh he was a strong strong kid and he was like 18 pulled 800 he trained with the Lillibridges, right?

Yep. This was kind of what put him on the map at 18, just a different. 18 years old, ripping up 800 pounds. And now there's a lot of younger guys lifting big weight, but he was like the first guy who was like really notable. Right. Clean, too. Yeah.

A lot of these guys I kind of knew i've passed away so that that's also impacted things to where you're like i need to be more careful is sumo deadlift a real deadlift i mean they're both kind of real is it real though pete this is i i i don't have said kinda i don't kind of said i did it here's here's my thing here's my thing with sumo i prefer conventional but i understand like sumo i'm like okay it's it's still tough i i can't pull more sumo to be honest i've tried it it feels terrible so it works for some folks i'm a little more neutral on that i used to be like screw sumo this ridiculous i was gonna ask yeah what did trend pete think about sumo it wasn't a thing back then though back when i was like in that

peak no one was doing sumo there's this guy he's he's gotten really famous on like tiktok for uh ridiculously wide sumo tony uh soza and i have you seen this guy with the with the crazy wide sumo i think i've seen him before yeah where he pulls it like an inch or two and i made a video about it and like we had some back and forth and then and then we like i was like honestly man i'm just trying to comment about this and we kind of hashed it out and now we're like super cool and we're like we're like 100 cool and you know we we squashed everything and like we're it's all it's all good but i don't know you find like there's like a video one inch range of motion sumo or something so i'm cool with all these guys now i'm like there's like a video one in transomotion sumo or something so i'm cool with all these guys now i'm like it's we're all just lifting weights let's be let's be friends right like at

the end of the day let's be real here i don't it's not that serious okay and i think he's actually somewhere in sacramento but i was like does he pull some crazy weights he he was well he did uh um he's pulling like sevens but so it was tony s-o-u-z-a yeah that's what i'm looking it's like yeah you might be able to find him if i'll keep trying you've seen these these videos kind of blew up because everyone's like that's the most ridiculous thing there's some people does really wide bench strokes too where their range of motion is shorter it was the equivalent of that pretty much so it was kind of interesting but i try to be cool with everybody i really am not looking for enemies anymore tony vendetta yep yeah type in tony vendetta i just i was going by

his real name yeah yeah but he's i see what you're talking about he's super nice though like i've talked to him and gotta watch out you don't squash your toes with those kind of lifts yeah for real feet almost under the plate. Yeah, so this guy, I think he is in Sacramento. Oh, he gets his body way upright. And I was like, you know, at first, because it was about a year ago, I was like, this is ridiculous. And then I'm just like, honestly, I don't even care. Like, we're all, he did a meet, and I think he did 600 at the meet.

So it was obviously a lot different with calibrated plates and like, but. It's interesting he's got to move his feet almost out of the way because the bar is bent as he picks it up is that i wonder if that's a kabuki bar it looks a little longer even than a texas deadlift maybe it's not but you get a lot more whip with the wide plates out to the end and non-calibrated right so that's why you can do that but if you throw calibrated on it makes it so much harder to break off the floor. Andrew, can you go to Kenny KO's page real quick after this video? Because there's a video Kenny made, and it prompted a response from Lane Norton.

It's on Kenny's Instagram, but maybe it's on his. Kenny KO has pissed off everyone. It's on his Instagram. He's made some enemies. It's pretty great. The reason why I asked you this, Pete, I was curious what your thoughts on the sumo deadlift were. Because, you know, there's a whole meme where people are like, sumo deadlift isn't a real deadlift. And when I pulled deadlifts, I mean, I pulled seven conventional,

but I pulled sumo. It was my main deadlift, right? Okay. So is this the video? Yeah, play this. Is that him? That's Tony? I think that was him. Yeah, play this. Is that him? That's Tony? I think that was him.

Yeah, play the audio. See, that's our guy. I think that's our guy, Tony. Yeah, Lane made a response. He was very angry at this whole idea. Sumo deadlifting is cheating. Boy, did that video garner quite the battle back and forth between the conventional deadlifters and the sumo deadlifting is cheating. Boy, did that video garner quite the battle back and forth between the conventional deadlifters

and the sumo deadlifters. Really, the only argument I need for sumo deadlifting being easier than a conventional deadlift and why sumo does not count and should not count in any regard is it is a shorter range of motion. It'd be like if I went onto bench press and instead of doing a full rep all the way up,

I just went halfway and I still counted that as a full rep. the way up i just went halfway and i still counted that as a full rep same exact thing it's a shorter range of motion when you do sumo deadlift versus conventional and majority of the time people are going to be able to pull more weight doing sumo than they will conventional and even if you look at chris bumstead he said himself that sumo does not count is sumo really cheating yeah you know it is yeah it is it really is just in general in general it's just so easy. Anyway, I think when it comes to the range of motion thing, if you start arguing about

range of motion, then you're going to argue about someone's arms being longer and someone else's arms being shorter. Somebody having an unfair advantage in the squat. And then with bench press, we see people arching and getting a shorter range of motion. It gets to be ridiculous. I think they're both lifts and whatever the current rules are, I let people just roll with that. Well, that's just the thing. The sport evolves and you just have to go with it.

Like we're not lifting under the same circumstances Ed Cohen was as far as equipment. And that's been brought up. So we obviously, we have the new bars, the Kabuki deadlift bars longer. We have the new crazy knee sleeves. It's just part of the game. So you can either just be mad about it or it's whatever. It's evolution. That's how all sports are.

They evolve and things change. And I'm kind of more at peace with that. I'm like, it's not the end of the world. Obviously, okay, maybe things were a little tougher in my day or maybe in Ed's day. But it's like that's just how it goes. So whatever. Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. All right all righty thank you everybody for checking out today's episode please drop those comments down below hit that like button subscribe all that good stuff follow

the podcast at mb power project all over the place my instagram is at i am andrew z in sima where you at this scores down below pete this was a good podcast man yo guys let us know what you thought about this. On Instagram and YouTube, on TikTok and Twitter. Pete, where can people find you? Just search YouTube, Pete Rubish, you'll find me. R-E-B-I-S-H.

I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.